good or ill, by influences too subtle for our perception as yet.  Experiment alone will decide whether a certain house, or a certain neighbourhood even, is agreeable to their taste.  It is a waste of money in general to make alterations; if they do not like the place they won’t live there, and that’s flat!  It is probable that Maidstone, where Lady Howard de Walden resides, may be specially suited to their needs, but her ladyship’s gardener knows how to turn a lucky chance to the best account.  Some of his plants have ten leaves!—­the uninitiated may think that fact grotesquely undeserving of a note of exclamation, but to explain would be too technical.  It may be observed that the famous Swan orchid, Cycnoches chlorochilon, flourishes at Maidstone as nowhere else perhaps in England.

Phaloenopsis were first introduced by Messrs. Rollisson, of Tooting, a firm that vanished years ago, but will live in the annals of horticulture as the earliest of the great importers.  In 1836 they got home a living specimen of Ph. amabilis, which had been described, and even figured, eighty years before.  A few months later the Duke of Devonshire secured Ph.  Schilleriana.  The late Mr. B.S.  Williams told me a very curious incident relating to this species.  It comes from the Philippines, and exacts a very hot, close atmosphere of course.  Once upon a time, however, a little piece was left in the cool house at Holloway, and remained there some months unnoticed by the authorities.  When at length the oversight was remarked, to their amaze this stranger from the tropics, abandoned in the temperate zone, proved to be thriving more vigorously than any of his fellows who enjoyed their proper climate!—­so he was left in peace and cherished as a “phenomenon.”  Four seasons had passed when I beheld the marvel, and it was a picture of health and strength, flowering freely; but the reader is not advised to introduce a few Phaloenopsis to his Odontoglossums—­not by any means.  Mr. Williams himself never repeated the experiment.  It was one of those delightfully perplexing vagaries which the orchid-grower notes from time to time.

There are rare species of this genus which will not be found in the dealers’ catalogues, and amateurs who like a novelty may be pleased to hear some names. Ph.  Manni, christened in honour of Mr. Mann, Director of the Indian Forest Department, is yellow and red; Ph. cornucervi, yellow and brown; Ph.  Portei, a natural hybrid, of Ph. rosea and Ph.  Aphrodite, white, the lip amethyst.  It is found very, very rarely in the woods near Manilla.  Above all, Ph.  Sanderiana, to which hangs a little tale.