A Rare Plant at the Botanic Gardens.

In one of the tropical greenhouses at the Harvard Botanic Garden there is a rare variety of the orchid family now in bloom. The magnificent plant, whose technical name is angraecum sequipedale, is a native of Madagascar where it is found growing upon large trees. In Madagascar it usually has a stem about four feet high; its leaves are a glossy green and are about a foot long. The blossom is nearly six inches in diameter, is very white, and has a spur from a foot to a foot and a half in length. It fragrance is very powerful and is peculiarly so at night. It was discovered in Madagascar about seventy years ago, but, until 1857, it was not introduced in this country. It is especially famous as one of the orchids in which Darwin was greatly interested on account of its unusually long spur. The plant now in bloom is a very good specimen, having four spikes of flowers with three blossoms on each spike.