DENDROBIUM AINSWORTHII ROSEUM. [Plate 20.] A Garden Hybrid.

DENDROBIUM AINSWORTHII ROSEUM. [Plate 20.] A Garden Hybrid.

Epiphytal. Stems (pseudobulbs) clustered, elongate, spreading, terete, stoutish above, tapering to the base, jointed, the surface furrowed between the joints. Leaves distichous, linear-oblong, acute, three-fourths of an inch broad, sheathing the stems at the base, the sheaths remaining as a membranous investment. Peduncles proceeding from the joints of the stem, slender, two to three-flowered, the pedicels with small ovate bracts at their base. Flowers showy, white, with rich amaranth-crimson blotch, measuring about three inches across; sepals lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, spreading, white, tinged with rose colour, as are the larger and broader oblong-ovate petals; lip (labellum) broadly obovate, cucullate, the basal portion rolled in over the column, the anterior portion spread out into a broad concave heart-shaped front lobe, which is undulated at the margin, and nearly covered by a large rich amaranth-crimson blotch, feathered at the edge, and traversed by deeper crimson veins, the extreme margin being paler. Column short, enclosed by the basal portion of the lip.

Dendrobium Ainsworthii, Moore in Gardeners’ Chronicle (1874), N.S. i. 443, figs. 93, 94; Id. N.S. viii., 166, figs. 30, 31, 32; Anderson in Gardeners’ Chronicle, N.S. vii., 751; Floral Magazine, 2 s. t. 196; Rand’s Orchids, 242; Williams’ Orchid Growers’ Manual, ed. v., 163.

Var. ROSEUM; sepals and petals tinted with magenta rose; lip almost wholly covered by the large mulberry-crimson feathered blotch.

Dendrobium Ainsworthii var. ROSEUM, Moore in Gardeners’ Chronicle (1877), N.S. vii., 655; Id. N.S. viii., 166; Anderson in Gardeners’ Chronicle, N.S. vii., 750.

The beautiful Dendrobium Ainsworthii is the result of a cross between D. nobile and D. heterocarpum, and was raised by Mr. Mitchell, gardener to R. F. Ainsworth, Esq., M.D., Of Higher Broughton, Manchester, after whom it is named. In habit of growth and in general appearance the plant partakes mostly of the character of D. nobile, while the flowers more closely resemble those of D. heterocarpum in form, and have in a slight degree the delicious fragrance of those produced by that species. In D. Ainsworthii the flowers have white sepals and petals, while the lip is marked by a dense blotch of a rich amaranth or mulberry-crimson. In the D. Ainsworthii roseum now figured, the sepals and petals are of a bright rosy-magenta, and the lip is more fully covered with a richer coloured deep crimson blotch. This variety is extremely rare, and forms a charming contrast to the white blossoms of its sister hybrid. The flowers will be found very useful for cutting, as they last for a considerable time in water.

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Dendrobium Ainsworthii roseum requires treatment similar to that given to D. nobile. We have found it to do well in a compost of peat and sphagnum moss, planted in pans suspended from the roof of the East India house, in a position where it can get plenty of light and air. During the growing season this plant enjoys a liberal supply of water, which after the bulbs have completed their development may be gradually withheld, and the plant cooled down by placing it in the Cattleya-house, where it should remain until the time of flowering, which extends from February to June. Mr. Stevens, of Trentham, grows it very successfully, suspended in a well-appointed plant stove, where it has abundance of light.

We remember seeing a splendid plant of Dendrobium Ainsworthii roseum exhibited by Mr. Mitchell, at the Whitsuntide Manchester Show, in May, 1877, in the form of a well furnished specimen two and a half feet in height and two feet in breadth, the stems being literally smothered with some hundreds of its beautiful crimson-lipped rosy-tinted flowers.

Referring to this same Manchester Show of 1877, Mr. Anderson, of Meadow Bank, a well-known Orchid grower, writes of this plant, as follows (Gardeners’ Chronicle, N.S. vii., 750):—“Possibly the gem of the Exhibition was Dendrobium Ainsworthii roseum. This is a most remarkable seedling partaking of the character of both its parents (D. nobile and D. heterocarpum), and in some respects superior to either. In point of floriferousness none of its parents can lay claim to such a quantity of nodes on the deciduous stems, each bearing, or rather emitting, its quota of flowers. I counted on one stem sixteen short racemes, each two and three-flowered. The flower itself has the sepals and petals of moniliforme rather than of nobile, white shaded with an almost imperceptible tint of rose, and tipped distinctly with that soft pleasing colour. The labellum is flat, like an expanded heterocarpum, reflexing a little towards the centre, with a blotch covering three-quarters of its surface with deep veined purplish or rather mulberry-crimson, edged very distinctly with white, and the extremity slightly tipped with crimson. This I look upon as one of the greatest gains in hybridization, whether we regard the colour of the flower, or the general floriferousness of the plant, or its free although not awkward habit of growth. As an Orchid enthusiast of the last five and twenty years, I would pronounce it one of the greatest gains that may be counted up in the whole known Orchid family.”

Altogether this is a most desirable plant, and being easy of cultivation, and of remarkably free-flowering habit, it should find a place in every collection.

PL. 21. AERIDES LOBBII.

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