Cattleya superba, as has been said, dwells also on the Rio Negro in Brazil; it has a wide range, for specimens have been sent from the Rio Meta in Colombia.  This species is not loved by gardeners, who find it difficult to cultivate and almost impossible to flower, probably because they cannot give it sunshine enough.  I have heard that Baron Hruby, a Hungarian enthusiast in our science, has no sort of trouble; wonders, indeed, are reported of that admirable collection, where all the hot orchids thrive like weeds.  The Briton may find comfort in assuming that cool species are happier beneath his cloudy skies; if he be prudent, he will not seek to verify the assumption.  The Assistant Curator of Kew assures us, in his excellent little work, “Orchids,” that the late Mr. Spyers grew C. superba well, and he details his method.  I myself have never seen the bloom.  Mr. Watson describes it as five inches across, “bright rosy-purple suffused with white, very fragrant, lip with acute side lobes folding over the column,”—­making a funnel, in short—­“the front lobe spreading, kidney-shaped, crimson-purple, with a blotch of white and yellow in front.”

In the same districts with Cattleya superba grows Galleandra Devoniana under circumstances rather unusual.  It clings to the very tip of a slender palm, in swamps which the Indians themselves regard with dread as the chosen home of fever and mosquitoes.  It was discovered by Sir Robert Schomburgk, who compared the flower to a foxglove, referring especially, perhaps, to the graceful bend of its long pseudo-bulbs, which is almost lost under cultivation.  The tube-like flowers are purple, contrasting exquisitely with a snow-white lip, striped with lilac in the throat.

Phaloenopsis, of course, are hot.  This is one of our oldest genera which still rank in the first class.  It was drawn and described so early as 1750, and a plant reached Messrs. Rollisson in 1838; they sold it to the Duke of Devonshire for a hundred guineas.  Many persons regard Phaloenopsis as the loveliest of all, and there is no question of their supreme beauty, though not everyone may rank them first.  They come mostly from the Philippines, but Java, Borneo, Cochin China, Burmah, even Assam contribute some species.  Colonel Berkeley found Ph. tetraspis, snow-white, and Ph. speciosa, purple, in the Andamans, when he was Governor of that settlement, clinging to low bushes along the mangrove creeks.  So far as I know, all the species dwell within breath of the sea, as it may be put, where the atmosphere is laden with salt; this gives a hint to the thoughtful.  Mr. Partington, of Cheshunt, who was the most renowned cultivator of the genus in his time, used to lay down salt upon the paths and beneath the stages of his Phaloenopsis house.  Lady Howard de Walden stands first, perhaps, at the present day, and her gardener follows the same system.  These plants, indeed, are affected, for