Laelia Anceps

Introduced from Mexico nearly forty years ago, this plant remains a distinguished favourite in nearly all collections. It grows freely in the Cattleya-house or in an ordinary plant-stove, and rarely fails to reward the cultivator with a rich profusion of its crimson-purple flowers. It bears three to four blooms, each being 3 inches across, on the apex of a slender two-edged scape 2 to 4 feet long. The lip has a yellow streak down its centre, and the apex is of the richest velvety crimson colour. This plant grows well in fibrous peat and living Sphagnum, a few lumps of charcoal and crocks being interspersed to keep the compost open. It requires an abundant supply of moisture when growing.

Laelia Anceps Dawsoniana

This is a lovely variety of the last species, from which it differs chiefly in having creamy-white sepals and petals, and a rich bright purple blotch on the apex of its white labellum. It is rare in collections, but one of the most strikingly beautiful of all Orchids.

Laelia Perrinii

This plant resembles the Cattleyas in habit, and has purplish, club-shaped, pseudo-bulbs, slightly compressed and distinctly furrowed. Its rosy-purple flowers are borne four or five on a spike about 8 or 10 inches long. The lip is three-lobed, and has a rich velvety crimson apex. It generally flowers during November or December, and lasts a considerable time in beauty. It grows remarkably well in an ordinary plant-stove having a mean winter temperature of 50°; and well-established specimens produce a rich profusion of flowers.

Laelia Superbiens

This is an old plant introduced from Guatemala some time about 1840. It has long, thick, spindle-shaped bulbs, each bearing a couple of stout leathery leaves about 1 foot long. It throws up its great flower-spikes about October, but it takes them a long time to develop themselves, and their flowers expand in December or January. The flower-spikes frequently attain a length of from 5 to 10 feet, and bear at their apices ten to twenty flowers. The most striking colour of the flowers is bright purplish-rose, but there is also a combination of white, crimson, lilac, and yellow intermixed, the tout ensemhle being very fine. This plant does well in lumps of fibrous peat and nodules of charcoal and crocks, and it does not require a high temperature in which to grow it successfully. A fine specimen of this plant once existed, for a considerable time, in the old Orchid-house at Chiswick, merely suspended from the roof, without any compost whatever.

We cannot well include Laelia majalis in our list of winter-flowering species, for though it grows well on a block in the temperature recommended for Laelia autumnalis, still its flowers are not produced until it commences its growth about April or May. It is the May-flower of the Spanish Americans (Flor de Mais), and is one of the most striking species in cultivation, though likely to be rivalled by the newly-introduced Laelia Jonghenna. With these few remarks, we leave the winter-blooming Loelias to the attention of our readers, and shall again recur to other winter-flowering Orchids as opportunity.occurs.

F. W. B.