Calanthe Veitchii and C. Vestita.—We are always ready to record, for the information of our subscribers, anything that strikes us as likely to be interesting to them, whether the subject be an old plant or one of more recent introduction. Recently, when visiting the garden of H. Gaskell, Esq., of Woolton, Liverpool, and inspecting his collection of Orchids, we were much pleased with the sight of a house full of Calanthes. On entering the house, the charming appearance of their lovely and graceful flower spikes was almost beyond conception. The spikes were more than five hundred in number, overhanging each other, and so arranged that their rosy and white flowers ware intermixed, thus producing an effect which was indeed most beautiful. In the case of _C. Veitchii_ many of the spikes were over four feet in length, and those of _C. vestita_ were equally good. It is, indeed, difficult to describe or even to form any idea of the lovely effect they produced; they must have been seen to be fully appreciated. These Calanthes are invaluable as decorative plants, blooming as they do during the dull winter months—a time when the presence of flowers, especially if of cheerful colours, to enliven the too often dreary sunless periods, is doubly welcome. There were, besides, many _Lælias_, _Cattleyas_, _Odontoglossum_, _Phalænopsis_, and a host of other good Orchids, many of them in their full blaze of beauty, and many others with their spikes showing for succession. Mr. Gaskell’s collection is making rapid strides in respect to cultivation, a state of things we are at all times pleased to see and to commend, inasmuch as it always gives one pleasure to see either Orchids or other plants well cared for, its they are at this place.—B. S. W. [Illustration: PL. 128. PILUMNA NOBILIS.] PILUMNA NOBILIS. [Plate 128.] Native of Colombia.