Identifier: woodlandsorchids00boyl (find matches)
Title: The Woodlands orchids described and illus. with stories of orchid collecting
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Boyle, Frederick, b. 1841
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Macmillan
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

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s of theplants are consulted in the first place, the convenience ofvisitors in the second, and show not at all ; which is to saythat the roofs are low, and the paths allow two persons towalk abreast in comfort but no more. The charge of these thirty-one houses is committed toMr. J. Coles, with thirteen subordinates regularly employed.Mr. Coles was bred if not born among orchids, when hisfather had charge of the late Mr. Smees admirable garden,at Wallington. After rising to the post of Foreman there,he entered the service of Captain Terry, PeterboroughHouse, Fulham, as Foreman of the orchid houses ; but twoyears afterwards this fine collection was dispersed, at Captain 6 THE WOODLANDS ORCHIDS Terrys death. Then Mr. Coles went to enlarge his experi-ence in Messrs. Sanders vast establishment at St. Albans.In due time the office of Orchid and Principal Foreman inthe Duke of Marlboroughs houses was offered to him, andat Blenheim he remained eight years. Thence he proceededto the Woodlands.
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MR. J. COLES. THE CATTLEYA HOUSE Our Cattleya House is 187 feet long, 24 feet wide ; glassscreens divide it into seven compartments. The roof, of asingle span, is 11 feet high in the centre, 4 feet at the sides. The compartment we enter first is devoted to Laeliaelegans mostly. On the big block of tufa in front, blooms ofCattleya and Laelia are displayed nearly all the year in smalltubes among the ferns and moss; for we do not exhaust ourplants by leaving the flowers on them when fully open.Scarlet Anthuriums crown the block, and among these, onthe bare stone, is a Laelia purpurata, growing strongly, worthobservation. For this plant was deadly sick last year, beyondhope of recovery ; as an experiment Mr. Coles set it on thetufa, wired down, and forthwith it began to pick up strength.But in fact the species loves to fix itself on limestone whenat home in Santa Catarina, as does L. elegans. It may be desirable to point out that the difference betweenCattleyas and Laelias as genera is pu

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