Insects should be always looked after to keep them in check. Sometimes the scale attacks them, but this may easily be kept under by a sponge and clean water. In this work of cleansing always avoid rubbing the foliage too much, as this will cause bruises, which are very detrimental to the plant and cause it to look unsightly; moreover, perfect and uninjured foliage is a great adornment to a plant, and gives evidence of good cultivation and judicious care. These plants are propagated by dividing the pseudobulbs just as they begin to grow, leaving one or two at the back of the leading one. The divided portions must be placed in pots, using for compost the same kind of material as that recommended above.
[Illustration: Pl. 134. CALANTHE VESTITA WILLIAMSII.]
CALANTHE VESTITA WILLIAMSII. [Plate 134.] Native of Eastern Asia.
Terrestrial. _Pseudobulbs_ broadly ovate or ovate-oblong, often five to eight inches long with a constriction above the middle, bluntly angular, in age furrowed, pale grey or ash colour, partially sheathed with membranaceous scales, and terminating in the remains of the previous set of leaves. _Leaves_ large, broadly lanceolate acuminate, a foot long, of herbaceous texture, and a pale green colour, nervosely striate, deciduous, appearing after the decay of the flowers, two or more from each bulb. _Scapes_ radical, tall, pale green, villous with spreading hairs, and having a few sheathing glabrous scales below, terminating in a raceme of fifteen to twenty or more flowers, with hairy pedicels, each subtended by a smooth, spreading or deflexed ovate-lanceolate boat-shaped bract, about an inch in length. _Flowers_ showy, about two inches across, _sepals_ oblong-lanceolate acute, narrowed towards the base, the dorsal one white, the lateral ones white on the upper, rosy crimson on the lower side at the base, the tips being white; _petals_ similar in form, rather broader upwards, bluntly acute, margined with rosy crimson, and pencilled in the lower half with the same colour; _lip_ adnate with the column at the base, its limb broadly roundish, deeply three-lobed, the lateral lobes oblong-obtuse, the broadly cuneate centre lobe emarginate, entirely of a dense bright rosy crimson, the discal region of a much deepened tint, and the margins paler. _Spur_ slender, curved beneath and shorter than the lip, rosy, with a green tip. _Column_ adnate with the base of lip, the blunt projecting beak white.