The author is one of the greatest Orchid specialists the world has known. As a practical cultivator in the old Pine Apple Nurseries of Messrs. Henderson, he had the good fortune to flower many species for the first time after their introduction, and ever since those early days he has continued to specialise in these plants. He was secretary of the Orchid Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society, and in he was included in the first sixty horticulturists who were selected to receive the Victoria Medal of honour in commemoration of the Queen's Jubilee.