This Tropical Australian species is best grown in a warm house, as the plants require a good amount of heat—70° to 80° while growing—and plenty of light, but the burning rays of the sun must be kept from them. They thrive best when planted in pans or baskets amongst rough fibrous peat and sphagnum moss, and suspended from the roof of the Orchid house. During the summer season they require a liberal supply of water, but in winter should have only sufficient to keep the stems plump. The plant will also succeed on blocks of wood, but, if grown in this way, it will in hot weather need watering twice a day, and once a day at other times. Some cultivators have been unsuccessful with this species, but we have found it to thrive well in a house where Crotons, Dipladenias, Stephanotis, etc., are grown; the Dendrobes seem to enjoy the moisture transmitted to them by the stove plants which are generally syringed in warm weather, and the dew arising from this operation appears to suit the Orchid. The syringe is also useful in subduing the red spider, which will sometimes attack the young growth. Insects often infest those kinds of _Dendrobium_ that are grown in strong heat, but they must by this and other means be kept under.
Such treatment suits almost all the popular Dendrobes, namely, _D. Devonianum_, _D. Wardianum superbum_, _D. chrysanthum_, _D. superbum (macrophyllum)_, _D. crassinode_, etc.; and the plants are found to be much stronger by reason of hanging near the glass well exposed to light, in which position they can be syringed on warm days—this moistening not only invigorating their growth, but being also a means of keeping insects under control.
[Illustration: PL. 39. PHALÆNOPSIS STUARTIANA NOBILIS.]
PHALÆNOPSIS STUARTIANA NOBILIS. [Plate 39.] Native of the East.
Epiphytal. Acaulescent, the plants clinging to their supports by stout flattened roots. _Leaves_ coriaceous, distichous, ligulate-oblong, acute, channelled, equitant at the base, the upper surface marbled with transverse grey blotches which disappear with age, the under surface purplish red, similar in size to those of _Phalænopsis Schilleriana_. _Scape_ radical, bearing a many-flowered (120 or more) branching panicle of very handsomely and peculiarly spotted blossoms. _Flowers_ nearly three inches across, expanded, cream-coloured at first, becoming white; _sepals_ oblong, or ovate-oblong, about an inch in length, the dorsal one white, the lateral ones white along the upper side, the lower side being yellow thickly spotted with cinnamon-red; _petals_ much broader, narrowed near the base, white; _lip_ three-lobed, with a four-horned yellow callosity at its base, the lateral lobes oblong, rounded, the middle lobe oval, with an anchor-like extremity, the apex terminating in a pair of narrow recurved laciniæ, all the lobes yellow at the base, white upwards and handsomely spotted with rich cinnamon-red. _Column_ clavate, white.