 Section 10 of About Orchids a Chat Phalaenopsis, of course, are hot. This is one of our oldest genera, which still rank in the first class. It was drawn and described so early as 1750, and a plant reached Monsieur Rolison in 1838. They sold it to the Duke of Devonshire for a hundred guineas. Many persons regard Phalaenopsis as the loveliest of all, and there is no question of their supreme beauty, though not everyone may rank them first. They come mostly from the Philippines, but Java, Borneo, Cochin, China, Burma, even Assam, contribute some species. Colonel Barkley found Phalaenopsis tetraspis, snow-white, and Phalaenopsis speciosa, purple, in the Andamans, when he was governor of that settlement, clinging to low bushes along the mangrove creeks. So far as I know, all the species dwell within breath of the sea, as it may be put, where the atmosphere is laden with salt. This gives a hint to the thoughtful. Mr. Partington of Chesent, who was the most renowned cultivator of the genus in his time, used to lay down salt upon the paths and beneath the stages of his Phalaenopsis house. Lady Howard de Walden stands first, perhaps, at the present day, and her gardener follows the same system. These plants, indeed, are affected, for good or ill, by influences too subtle for our perception as yet. Experiment alone will decide whether a certain house or a certain neighbourhood even is agreeable to their taste. It is a waste of money in general to make alterations. If they do not like the place, they won't live there, and that's flat. It is probable that Maidstone, where Lady Howard de Walden resides, may be specially suited to their needs, but her ladyship's gardener knows how to turn a lucky chance to the best account. Some of his plants have ten leaves. The uninitiated may think that fact grotesquely undeserving of a note of exclamation, but to explain would be too technical. It may be observed that the famous swan orchid, Kiknuch's Chlorocylon, flourishes at Maidstone as nowhere else, perhaps, in England. Phalaenopsis were first introduced by Monsieur Rollison of Tooting, a firm that vanished years ago, but will live in the annals of horticulture as the earliest of the great importers. In 1836 they got home a living specimen of Phalaenopsis amablis, which had been described and even figured eighty years before. A few months later, the Duke of Devonshire secured Phalaenopsis chilariana. The late Mr. B. S. Williams told me a very curious incident relating to this species. It comes from the Philippines and exacts a very hot, close atmosphere, of course. Once upon a time, however, a little piece was left in the cool house at Holloway, and remained there some months unnoticed by the authorities. When at length the oversight was remarked, to their amaze, this stranger from the tropics, abandoned in the temperate zone, proved to be thriving more vigorously than any of his fellows who enjoyed their proper climate. So he was left in peace and cherished as a phenomenon. Four seasons had passed when I beheld the marvel, and it was a picture of health and strength, flowering freely. But the reader is not advised to introduce a few Phalaenopsis to his Adontoglossums, not by any means. Mr. Williams himself never repeated the experiment. It was one of those delightfully perplexing vagaries which the orchid grower notes from time to time. There are rare species of this genus which will not be found in the dealer's catalogs, and amateurs who, like a novelty, may be pleased to hear some names. Phalaenopsis mani, christened in honour of Mr. Mann, director of the Indian Forest Department, is yellow and red. Phalaenopsis cornucurvi, yellow and brown, Phalaenopsis portii, a natural hybrid of Phalaenopsis rosia and Phalaenopsis aphrodite, white, the lip amethyst. It is found very, very rarely in the woods near Manila. Above all, Phalaenopsis is a little bit of a sandariana, to which hangs a little tale. So soon as the natives of the Philippines began to understand that their white and lilac weeds were cherished in Europe, they talked of a scarlet variety which thrilled listening collectors with joy. But the precious thing never came to hand, and on closer inquiry no responsible witness could be found who had seen it. Years passed by and the scarlet Phalaenopsis became a jest among orchidaceans. The natives persisted, however, and Mr. Sander found the belief so general, if shadowy, that when a service of coasting steamers was established, he sent Mr. Robilan to make a thorough investigation. His enterprise and sagacity were rewarded, as usual. After floating round for twenty-five years amidst derision, the rumour proved true in part. Phalaenopsis sandariana is not scarlet but purplish rose, a very handsome and distinct species. To the same collector we owe the noblest of Iridis, Iridis Lorencie, waxy white tipped with purple, and deep purple lip. Beside the lovely colouring, it is the largest by far of that genus. Mr. Robilan sent two plants from the Far East. He had not seen the flower, nor received any description from the natives. Mr. Sander grew them in equal ignorance for three years, and sent one to auction in Blossom. It fell to Sir Trevor Lawrence's bid for two hundred and thirty-five guineas. Many of the Cilogenes, classed as cool, which indeed rub along with the Dontoglossums, do better in the stove while growing. Cilogenes Christata itself comes from Nepal, where the summer sun is terrible, and it covers the rocks most exposed. But I will only name a few of those recognised as hot. Among the most striking of flowers, exquisitely pretty also, is Cilogenes Pandurata from Borneo. Its spike has been described by a person of fine fancy, as resembling a row of glossy pea-green frogs with black tongues, each three inches in diameter. The whole bloom is brilliantly green, but several ridges clothed with hairs as black and soft as velvet run down the lip, seeming to issue from a mouth. It is strange to see that a plant so curious, so beautiful and so sweet, should be so rarely cultivated. I own, however, that it is very unwilling to make itself at home with us. Cilogenes Dayana, also a native of Borneo, one of our newest discoveries, is named after Mr. Day of Tottenham. I may interpolate a remark here for the encouragement of poor but enthusiastic members of our fraternity. When Mr. Day sold his collection lately, an American syndicate paid £12,000 down, and the remaining plants fetched £12,000 at auction. So at least the uncontradicted report goes. Cilogenes Dayana is rare, of course, and dear, but Mr. Sander has lately imported a large quantity. The spike is three feet long sometimes, a pendant wreath of buff yellow flowers broadly striped with chocolate. Cilogenes Masangiana from Assam resembles this, but the lip is deep crimson brown with lines of yellow and a white edge. Newest of all the Cilogenes and supremely beautiful is Cilogenes Sanderiana, imported by the gentleman whose name it bears. He has been called the Orchid King. This superb species has only flowered once in Europe as yet. Baron Ferdinand Rothschild is the happy man. Its snow-white blooms, six on a spike, generally, each three inches across, have very dark brown stripes on the lip. It was discovered in Borneo by Mr. Forsterman, the same collector who happened upon the wondrous scarlet dendrobe mentioned in a former chapter. There I stated that Baron Schroeder had three pieces. This was a mistake, unfortunately. Mr. Forsterman only secured three, of which two died on the journey. Baron Schroeder bought the third, but it has perished. No more can be found as yet. Of oncidiums there are many that demand stove treatment. The story of oncidium splendidum is curious. It first turned up in France some thirty years ago. A ship's captain sailing from Saint Lezaire brought half a dozen pieces, which he gave to his owner, Mr. Erman. The latter handed them to Mr. Dibo and Ketely, of Scho, who split them up and distributed them. Two of the original plants found their way to England, and they also appear to have been cut up. A legend of the King Street auction room recalls how perfervid competitors ran up a bit of oncidium splendidum that had only one leaf to thirty guineas. The whole stock vanished presently, which is not surprising, if it had all been divided in the same ruthless manner. From that day the species was lost, until Mr. Sander turned his attention to it. There was no record of its habitat. The name of the vessel, or even of the captain, might have furnished a clue had it been recorded, for the shipping intelligence of the day would have shown what ports he was frequenting about that time. I could tell of mysterious orchids traced home upon indications less distinct, but there was absolutely nothing. Mr. Sander, however, had scrutinized the plant carefully, while specimens were still extant, and from the structure of the leaf he formed a strong conclusion that it must belong to the Central American flora, furthermore that it must inhabit a very warm locality. In 1882 he directed one of his collectors, Mr. Overslees, to look for the precious thing in Costa Rica, year after year the search proceeded, until Mr. Overslees declared with some warmth that Oncidium splendidum might grow in heaven, or in the other place, but it was not to be found in Costa Rica. But theorists are stubborn, and year after year he was sent back. At length, in 1882, riding through a district often explored, the collector found himself in a grassy plain dotted with pale yellow flowers. He had beheld the same many times, but his business was orchids. On this occasion, however, he chanced to approach one of the masses and recognized the object of his quest. It was the familiar case of a man who overlooks the thing he has defined, because it is too near and too conspicuous. But Mr. Overslees had excuse enough, who could have expected to see an Oncidium buried in long grass, exposed to the full power of a tropic sun. Oncidium lancianum is perhaps the hottest of its genus. Those happy mortals who can grow it declare they have no trouble. But unless perfectly strong and healthy, it gets the spot, and promptly goes to wreck. In the houses of the New Plant and Bulb Company, at Colchester, now extinct, Oncidium lancianum flourished with a vigour almost embarrassing, putting forth such enormous leaves as it hung close to the glass, as made blinds quite superfluous at Midsummer. But this was an extraordinary case. Certainly it is a glorious spectacle in flower. Yellow, barred with brown, the lip violet, the spikes last a month in full beauty, sometimes two. An Oncidium, which always commands attention from the public and grateful regard from the devotee, is Oncidium pepillio. Its strange form fascinated the Duke of Devonshire, grandfather to the present, who was almost the first of our Lordly amateurs, and tempted him to undertake the explorations which introduced so many fine plants to Europe. The butterfly orchid is so familiar that I do not pause to describe it, but imagine that most interesting flower all blue, instead of gold and brown. I have never been able to learn what was the foundation of the old belief in such a marvel, but the great Lindley went to his grave in unshaken confidence that a blue pepillio exists. Once he thought he had a specimen, but it flowered, and his triumph had to be postponed. I myself heard of it two years back, and tried to cherish a belief that the news was true. A friend from Natale assured me that he had seen one on the table of the director of the gardens at Durban, but it proved to be one of those terrestrial orchids so lovely and so tantalising to us, with which South Africa abounds. Very slowly do we lengthen the catalog of them in our houses. There are gardeners such as Mr Cook at Loughborough, who grows Deesa Grandiflora like a weed. Mr Watson of Cew demonstrated that Deesa Rassimosa will flourish under conditions easily secured. I had the good fortune to do as much for Deesa Couparai, though not by my own skill. One supreme little triumph is mine, however. In very early days, when animated with the courage of utter ignorance, I bought eight bulbs of Deesa discolour, and flowered them every one. No mortal in Europe had done it before, nor has any tried since, I charitably hope, for a more rubbishing bloom does not exist. But there it was, Ego Fakie, and the specimen in the herbarium at Cew bears my name. But legends should not be disregarded when it is certain that they'd reach us from a native source. Some of the most striking finds had been announced long since by observant savages. I have told the story of Phalaenopsis Sandariana. It was a Zulu who put the discoverer of the new yellow cala on the track. The blue eutricularia had been heard of and discredited long before it was found. Eutricularias are not orchids indeed, but only botanists regard the distinction. The natives of Assam persistently assert that a bright yellow chimbidium grows there of supremist beauty, and we expect it to turn up one day. The Malagasy describe a scarlet one, but I am digressing. Epidendrons mostly will bear as much heat as can be given them while growing. All demand more sunshine than they can get in our climate. Amateurs do not seem to be so well acquainted with the grand things of this genus as they should be. They distrust all imported epidendrons. Many worthless specimens indeed bear a perplexing resemblance to the finest. So much so that the most observant of authorities would not think of buying at the auction room, unless he had confidence enough in the seller's honesty to accept his description of a lot. Gloriously beautiful, however, are some of those rarely met with. Easy to cultivate also in a sunny place, and not dear. Epidendron Rhizophorum has been lately rechristened Epidendron radicans, a name which might be confined to the Mexican variety. For the plant recurs in Brazil, practically the same, but with a certain difference. The former grows on shrubs, a true epiphyte. The latter has its bottom roots in the soil, at foot of the tallest trees, and runs up to the very summit, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet. The flowers also show a distinction, but in effect they are brilliant orange-red, the lip yellow edged with scarlet. Forty or fifty of them hanging in a cluster from the top of the raceme makes a show to remember. Mr. Watson saw a plant a few years ago that bore eighty-six heads of flowers. They last for three months. Epidendron prismatocarpum also is a lovely thing, with narrow, dagger-like sepals and petals, creamy yellow, spotted black, lip, mauve or violet edged with pale yellow. Of the many hot dendrobiums, Australia supplies a good proportion. There is dendrobium bigibomb, of course, too well known for description. It dwells on the small islands in Torres Straits. This species flowered at Q so early as 1824, but the plant died. Monsieur Lodges of Hackney reintroduced it thirty years later. Dendrobium Johannes from Queensland, brown and yellow, streaked with orange, the flowers curiously twisted. Dendrobium superbians from Torres Straits, rosy purple, edged with white, lip, crimson. Handsomest of all by far is dendrobium phalaenopsis. It throws out a long slender spike from the tip of the pseudo-bulb, bearing six or more flowers, three inches across. The sepals are lance-shaped and the petals twice as broad, rosy lilac with veins of darker tint. The lip arched over by its side-lobes, crimson lake in the throat, paler, and striped at the mouth. It was first sent home by Mr Forbes of Q Gardens from Timor-Loway in 1880, but Mr Fitzgerald had made drawings of a species substantially the same, some years before, from a plant he discovered on the property of Captain Bloomfield, Balmain, in Queensland, nearly a thousand miles south of Timor. Mr Sander caused search to be made and he has introduced Mr Fitzgerald's variety under the name of dendrobium phalaenopsis statarianum. It is smaller than the type and crimson instead of lilac. Bulbophyllums rank among the marvels of nature. It is a point comparatively trivial that this genus includes the largest of orchids and perhaps the smallest. Bulbophyllum becari has leaves two feet long, eighteen inches broad. It encircles the biggest tree in one clasp of its rhizomes, which travellers mistake for the coil of a burr constrictor. Furthermore, this species emits the vilest stench known to scientific persons, which is a great saying. But these points are insignificant. The charm of Bulbophyllums lies in their machinery for trapping insects. Those who attended the temple show last year saw something of it if they could penetrate the crush around Bulbophyllum barbidurum on Sir Trevor Lawrence's stand. This tiny but amazing plant comes from Sierra Leone. The long yellow lip is attached to the column by the slenderest possible joint so that it rocks without an instance pause. At the tip is set a brush of silky hairs which wave backwards and forwards with the precision of machinery. No wonder that the natives believe it is a living thing. The purpose of these arrangements is to catch flies, which other species affect with equal ingenuity if less elaboration. Very pretty too are some of them, as Bulbophyllum lobii. Its clear, clean, orange, creamy hue is delightful to behold. The lip, so delicately balanced, quivers at every breath. If the slender stem be bent back as by a fly alighting on the column, that quivering cap turns and hangs imminent. Another tiny shake, as though the fly approached the nectaree, and it falls plump, head over heels like a shot imprisoning the insect. Thus the flower is impregnated. If we wished to excite a thoughtful child's interest in botany, not regardless of the sense of beauty either, we would make an investment in Bulbophyllum lobii. Bulbophyllum dearii also is pretty. Golden ochre, spotted red, with a wide dorsal sepul, very narrow petals flying behind, lower sepuls broadly striped with red, and a yellow lip upon a hinge of course. But the gymnastic performances of this species are not so impressive as in most of its kin. A new Bulbophyllum, b. Godseffianum, has lately been brought from the Philippines, contrived on the same principle, but even more charming. The flowers, two inches broad, have the colour of old gold, with stripes of crimson on the petals, and the dorsal sepul shows membranes almost transparent, which have the effect of silver embroidery. Until Bulbophyllum becarii was introduced from Borneo in 1867, the Gramata phylums were regarded as monsters incomparable. Mr Arthur Casar, resident magistrate at Selangor in the Straits Settlement, tells of one which he gathered on a durian tree, seven feet two inches high, thirteen feet six inches across, bearing seven spikes of flower the longest, eight feet six inches, a weight which fifteen men could only just carry. Mr F. W. Burbage heard a tree fall in the jungle one night when he was four miles away, and on visiting the spot he found, right in the collar of the trunk, a Gramata phylum big enough to fill a Pickford's van, just opening its golden brown spotted flowers on stout spikes two yards long. It is not to be hoped that we shall ever see monsters like these in Europe. The genus indeed is unruly. Gramata phylum speciosum has been grown to six feet high, I believe, which is big enough to satisfy the modest amateur, especially when it develops leaves two feet long. The flowers are, that is, they ought to be, six inches in diameter, rich yellow blotched with reddish purple. They have some giants at cue now, of which fine things are expected. Gramata phylum meziusianum, named after Mr Mezius, a leading amateur, is pale buff, speckled with chocolate, at the ends of the sepals and petals, charmingly tipped with the same hue. Within the last few months Mr Sander has obtained Gramata phylum multiflorum from the Philippines, which seems to be not only the most beautiful, but the easiest to cultivate of those yet introduced. Its flowers droop in a garland of pale green and yellow, splashed with brown, not loosely set as is the rule, but scarcely half an inch apart. The effect is said to be lovely beyond description. We may hope to judge for ourselves in no long time, for Mr Sander has presented a wondrous specimen to the royal garden's cue. This is assuredly the biggest orchid ever brought to Europe. Its snaky pseudo-bulbs measure nine feet, and the old flower spikes stood eighteen feet high. It will be found in the Victoria Regia house, growing strongly. End of section 10. Section 11 of About Orchids, A Chat This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Peter Yersley. About Orchids, A Chat by Frederick Boyle. Chapter 7. The Lost Orchid Not a few orchids are lost, have been described, that is, and named even linger in some great collection, but bearing no history cannot now be found. Such, for instance, are Catlea Jongiana, Chimbidium hookerianum, Chipropidium ferianum, but there is one to which the definite article might have been applied a very few days ago. This is Catlea labiata vira. It was the first to bear the name of Catlea, though not absolutely the first of that genus discovered. Catlea Lodige preceded it by a few years, but was called an Epidendrum. Curious it is to note how science has returned in this latter day to the views of a pre-scientific era. Professor Reichenbach was only restrained from abolishing the genus Catlea and merging all its species into Epidendrum by regard for the weakness of human nature. Catlea labiata vira was sent from Brazil to Dr. Lindley by Mr. W. Swainson and reached Liverpool in 1818. So much is certain, for Lindley makes a statement in his collectanea botanica, but legends and myths encircle that great event. It is commonly told in books that Sir W. Jackson Hooker, regious professor of botany at Glasgow, begged Mr. Swainson, who was collecting specimens in natural history, to send him some lichens. He did so, and with the cases arrived a quantity of orchids, which had been used to pack them. Less suitable material for dunnage could not be found, unless we suppose that it was thrust between the boxes to keep them steady. Paxton is the authority for this detail, which has its importance. The orchid arriving in such humble fashion proved to be Catlea labiata. Lindley gave it that name. There was no need to add vira then. He established the new genus for it, and thus preserved for all time the memory of Mr. Catlea, a great horticulturist dwelling at Barnett. There was no ground in supposing the species rare. A few years afterwards, in fact, Mr. Gardner, travelling in pursuit of butterflies and birds, sent home quantities of a catlea which he found on the precipitous sides of the Pedro Bonita Range, and also on the Gavea, which our sailors call Top Sail Mountain, or Lord Hood's Nose. These orchids passed as Catlea labiata for a while. Paxton congratulated himself and the world in his flower garden, that the stock was so greatly increased. Those were the coaching days, when botanists had not much opportunity for comparison. It is to be observed also that Gardner's Catlea was the nearest relative of Swainson's. It is known at present as C. labiata warnari. The true species, however, has points unmistakable. Some of its skinsfolk show a double flower sheath, very, very rarely under exceptional circumstances. But Catlea labiata vira never fails, and an interesting question it is to resolve why this alone should be so carefully protected. One may cautiously surmise that its habitat is even damper than others. In the next place some plants have their leaves red underneath, others green, and the flower sheath always corresponds. This peculiarity is shared by Catlea labiata warnari alone. Thirdly, and there is the grand distinction, the one which gives such extreme value to the species, it flowers in the late autumn, and thus fills a gap. Those who possess a plant may have Catlea in bloom the whole year round, and they alone. Accordingly, it makes a section by itself in the classification of Raikhenbachia as the single species that flowers from the current year's growth after resting. Section two contains the species that flower from the current year's growth before resting. Section three, those that flower from last year's growth after resting. All these are many, but Catlea labiata vira stands alone. We have no need to dwell upon the contest that arose at the introduction of Catlea mossii in 1840, which grew more and more bitter as others of the class came in, and has not yet ceased. It is enough to say that Lindley declined to recognize Catlea mossii as a species, though he stood almost solitary against the trade backed by a host of enthusiastic amateurs. The great botanist declared that he could see nothing in the beautiful new Catlea to distinguish it as a species from the one already named C. labiata, except that most variable of characteristics, color, modes of growth, and times of flowering do not concern science. The structure of the plants is identical, and to admit Catlea mossii as a sub-species of the same was the utmost concession Lindley would make. This was in 1840. 15 years later came Catlea Washuichi, now called Gigas. Then next year Catlea Triani, Catlea Daoyana in 1866, Catlea Mendeliai in 1870, all labiators strictly speaking. At each arrival the controversy was renewed. It is not over yet. But Sir Joseph Hooker succeeded Lindley, and Reichenbach succeeded Hooker as the supreme authority, and each of them stood firm. There are of course many Catleas recognized as species, but Lindley's rule has been maintained. We may return to the lost orchid. As time went on, and the merits of Catlea labiator Vera were understood, the few specimens extant, proceeding from Mr Swainson's importation, fetched larger and larger prices. These merits indeed were conspicuous. Beside the season of flowering, this proved to be the strongest and most easily grown of Catleas. Its normal type was at least as charming as any, and it showed an extraordinary readiness to vary. Few, as has been said, were the plants in cultivation, but they gave three distinct varieties. Van Hutter shows us two in his admirable Flora de Serres, Catlea labiator candidate from Sion House, pure white, accepting the okra's throat, which is invariable, and Catlea labiator Pictor, deep red, from the collection of J. J. Blandier Square, Reading. The third was Catlea labiator Pescatoriae, white with a deep red blotch upon the lip, formerly owned by Monsieur Rouget Chauvié of Paris, now by the Duke de Massa. Under such circumstances the dealers began to stir in earnest. From the first, indeed, the more enterprising had made efforts to import a plant which, as they supposed, must be a common weed at Rio since men used it to pack boxes, but that this was an error they soon perceived. Taking the town as a centre, collectors pushed out on all sides. Probably there is not one of the large dealers in England, or the continent, dead or living, who has not spent money, a large sum, too, in searching for Catlea labiator Vera. Probably also not one has lost by the speculation there never a sign nor a hint, scarcely a rumour, of the thing sought, rewarded them. For all secured new orchids, new bulbs, eukaris in especial, dipladinias, bromeliaceae, colladiums, maranthus, aristolochias, and what not. In this manner the lost orchid has done immense service to botany and to mankind. One may say that the hunt lasted 70 years, and led collectors to strike a path through almost every province of Brazil, almost, for there are still vast regions unexplored. A man might start, for example, at Para, and travel to Bogota, two thousand miles or so, with a stretch of six hundred miles on either hand which is untouched. It may well be asked what Mr. Swainson was doing, if alive, while his discovery thus agitated the world. Alive he was, in New Zealand, until the year 1855, but he offered no assistance. It is scarcely to be doubted that he had none to give. The orchids fell in his way by accident, possibly collected in distant parts by some poor fellow who died at Rio. Swainson picked them up and used them to stow his lichens. Not least extraordinary, however, in this extraordinary tale, is the fact that various bits of cat-layer labiate avira turned up during this time. Lord Hume has a noble specimen at Bothwell Castle, which did not come from Swainson's consignment. His gardener told the story five years ago. I am quite sure, he wrote, that my nephew told me the small bit I had from him, forty years before, was of a newly imported plant, and I understood it had been brought by one of Monsieur Horseful's ships. Lord Fitzwilliam seems to have got one in the same way from another ship, but the most astonishing case is recent. About seven years ago, two plants made their appearance in the zoological gardens at Regent's Park, in the conservatory behind Mr Bartlett's house. How they got there is an eternal mystery. Mr Bartlett sold them for a large sum, but an equal sum offered him for any scrap of information, showing how they came into his hands. He was sorrowfully obliged to refuse, or rather found himself unable to earn. They certainly arrived in company with some monkeys, but when? From what district of South America? The closest search of his papers failed to show. In 1885, Dr Ragell, director of the Imperial Gardens at St Petersburg, received a few plants. It may be worthwhile to name those gentlemen who recently possessed examples of cat-layer labiator Vera, so far as our knowledge goes. They were Sir Trevor Lawrence, Lord Rothschild, Duke of Marlborough, Lord Hume, Monsieur J. Chamberlain, T. Statton, J. J. Blandy, and G. Hardy in England, in America Mr. F. L. Amis, two, and Mr. H. H. Honeywell. In France, Comte de Germini, Duke de Massa, Baron Alphonse, and Baron Adolf de Rothschild, Monsieur Trérin of Bordeaux, there were two as is believed in Italy. And now the horticultural papers inform us that the lost orchid is found by Mr. Sander of Saint Albans. Assuredly, he deserves his luck, if the result of twenty years' labour should be so described, it was about 1870 we believe that Mr. Sander sent out Arnold, who passed five years in exploring Venezuela. He had made up his mind that the treasure must not be looked for in Brazil, turning next to Colombia. In successive years, Chesterton, Bartholomeas, Kierbach, and the brothers' Cléboch overran that country. Returning to Brazil, his collectors, Overslees, Smith, Bestwood, went over every foot of the ground, which Swainson seems by his books, to have traversed. At the same time, Clark followed Gardner's track through the Petra Bonita and Top Sale Mountains. There, Osmers traced the whole coastline of the Brazils from north to south, employing five years in the work. Finally, Dygons undertook the search, and died this year. To these men, we owe grand discoveries beyond counting. To name but the grandest, Arnold found Catlea Percevaliana. From Colombia were brought Adontaglossum vexilaria rubellum, Bolia coelestis, pescatoria clabochorum. Smith sent Catlea O'Brieniana, Clark, the dwarf Catleas, Pumilla and Price Stans. Lawrence Sten, Catlea Shrodari, Jesterton Catlea Sandariana, Dygons Catlea Dygansiana, which received a botanical certificate from the Royal Horticultural Society on September the 8th 1890, but they heard not a whisper of the lost orchid. In 1889, a collector employed by Monsieur Moro of Paris to explore central and north Brazil in search of insects, sent home fifty plants. For Monsieur Moro is an enthusiast in orchidology also. He had no object in keeping the secret of its habitat, and when Mr Sandar, chanceing to call, recognised the treasure so long lost, he gave every assistance. Meanwhile, the International Horticultural Society of Brussels had secured a quantity, but they regarded it as new, and gave it the name of Catlea O'Brieniana, in which era they persisted until Monsieur Sandar flooded the market. CHAPTER VIII. My articles brought upon me a flood of questions almost as embarrassing as flattering to a busy journalist. The burden of them was curiously like. Three ladies or gentlemen in four wrote thus, I love orchids. I had not the least suspicion that they may be cultivated so easily, and so cheaply. I am going to begin. Will you please inform me? Here diversity set in with a vengeance, from temperature to flower pots, from the selection of species to the selection of peat, from the architecture of a greenhouse to the capabilities of window gardening, with excursions between. My advice was solicited. I replied as best I could. It must be feared, however, that the most careful questioning and the most elaborate replies by post will not furnish that groundwork of knowledge, the ABC of the science, which is needed by a person utterly unskilled, nor will he find it readily in the handbooks, written by men familiar with the alphabet of orchidology from their youth up. Though they seem to begin at the beginning, ignorant enthusiasts who study them find woeful gaps. It is little I can do in this matter, yet believing that the culture of these plants will be as general shortly as the culture of pelagoniums under glass, and firmly convinced that he who hastens that day is a real benefactor to his kind, I am most anxious to do what lies in my power. Considering the means by which this end may be won, it appears necessary above all to avoid boring the student. He should be led to feel how charming is the business in hand, even while engaged with prosaic details. And it seems to me, after some thought, that the sketch of a grand orchid nursery will best serve our purpose for the moment. There I can show at once processes and results, passing at a step, as it were, from the granary into the harvest field, from the workshop to the finished and glorious production. An orchid farm is no extravagant description of the establishment at St Albans. They are alone in Europe, so far as I know. Three acres of ground are occupied by orchids exclusively. It is possible that larger houses might be found. Everything is possible. But such are devoted more or less to a variety of plants, and the departments are not all gathered beneath one roof. I confess for my own part a hatred of references. They interrupt the writer, and they distract the reader. At the place I have chosen to illustrate our theme, one has but to cross a corridor from any of the working quarters to reach the showroom. We may start upon our critical survey from the very dwelling-house. Pundits of agricultural science explore the sheds, I believe, the barns, stables, machine-rooms, and so forth, before inspecting the crops. We may follow the same course, but our road offers an unusual distraction. It passes from the farmer's hall, beneath a high-glazed arch. Some thirty feet beyond, the path is stopped by a wall of tufa and stalactite, which rises to the lofty roof, and compels the traveller to turn right or left. Water pours down it, and falls trickling into a narrow pool beneath. Its rough front is studied with orchids from crest to base. Cilogenes have lost those pendant wreaths of bloom which lately tipped the rock as with snow, but there are comidiums, arching long sprays of green and chocolate, thickets of dendrobe, set with flowers beyond counting, ivory and rose and purple and orange, scarlet antheriums, huge clumps of phages, and evergreen calanthi, with a score of spikes rising from their broad leaves. Cipripediums of quaint form and striking half tones of colour, on cidiums which droop their slender garlands, a yard long, golden yellow and spotted, purple and white, a hundred tints. The crown of the rock bristles all along with cut layers, a dark green glossy little wood against the sky. The triannes are almost over, but here and there a belated beauty pushes through, white or rosy with a lip of crimson velvet. Mossy eyes have replaced them generally, and from beds three feet in diameter their great blooms start by the score, in every shade of pink and crimson and rosy purple. There is Loelia elegans, exterminated in its native home, of such bulk and such luxuriance of growth, that the islanders left for lawn might almost find consolation in regarding it here. Overall climbing up the spandrels of the roof in full blaze of sunshine is Vandeterres, round as a pencil both leaves and stalk, which will drape those bare iron rods presently with crimson and pink and gold. Footnote. I was too sanguine. Vandeterres refused to dethrive. End footnote. The way to our farmyard is not like others. It traverses a corner of fairyland. We find a door masked by such a rock as that faintly and vaguely pictured, which opens on a broad corridor. Through all its length, four hundred feet, it is ceilinged with baskets of mixok and orchid, as close as they will fit. Upon the left hand lies a series of glass structures. Upon the right, below the level of the corridor, the workshops. At the end, why, to be frank, the end is blocked by a ponderous screen of matting just now. But this dingy barrier is significant of a work in hand, which will not be the least curious nor the least charming of the strange sights here. The farmer has already a siding, of course, for the removal of his produce. He finds it necessary to have a station of his own also for the convenience of clients. Beyond the screen at present lies an area of mud and ruin, traversed by broken walls and rows of hot water piping, swathed in felt to exclude the chill air. A few weeks since this little wilderness was covered with glass, but the ends of the long houses have been cut off to make room for a structure into which visitors will step, direct from the train. The platform is already finished, neat and trim. So are the vast boilers and furnaces, newly rebuilt, which would drive a cotton factory. A busy scene, that is, which we survey, looking down through openings in the wall of the corridor. Here is the composing room, where that magnificent record of archaeology in three languages, the Reich and Bachia, slowly advances from year to year. There is the printing room, with no steam presses or labour-saving machinery, but the most skillful craftsmen to be found, the finest paper, the most deliberate and costly processes, to rival the great works of the past in illustrating modern science. These departments, however, we need not visit, nor the chambers lower still, where mechanical offices are performed. The importing room first demands notice. Here cases are received by fifties and hundreds, week by week, from every quarter of the orchid world, unpacked, and their contents stored, until space is made for them up above. It is a long apartment, broad and low, with tables against the wall and down the middle, heaped with things which, to the uninitiated, seem for the most part dry sticks and dead bulbs. Orchids everywhere. They hang in dense bunches from the roof. They lie a foot thick on every board, and two feet thick below. They are suspended on the walls. Men pass incessantly along the gangways, carrying a load that would fill a barrow. And all the while, fresh stores are accumulating under the hands of that little group in the middle, bent and busy at cases just arrived. They belong to a lot of eighty that came in from Burma last night, and while we look on, a boy brings a telegram announcing fifty more from Mexico, that will reach Waterloo at two thirty p.m. Great is the wrath and great the anxiety at this news, for someone has blundered. The warning should have been dispatched three hours before. Orchids must not arrive at unknown stations, unless there be someone of discretion and experience to meet them, and the next train does not leave St. Albans until two forty-four. Dreadful is the sense of responsibility, alarming the suggestions of disaster that arise from this incident. The Burmese cases, in hand just now, are filled with dendrobiums, Crassinodi and Wardianum, stowed in layers as close as possible, with defalconeri for packing material. A royal way of doing things indeed, to substitute an orchid of value for shavings or moths, but mighty convenient and profitable. For that packing will be sent to the auction-rooms presently, and will be sold for no small proportion of the sum which its more delicate charge attains. We remark that the experienced persons who remove these precious sticks, layer by layer, perform their office gingerly. There is not much danger or unpleasantness in unpacking dendrobes, compared with other genera, but ship-rats spring out occasionally and give an ugly bite. Scorpions and centipedes have been known to harbour in the close roots of dendrobium falconeri. Stinging ants are by no means improbable, nor huge spiders, while cockroaches of giant size which should be killed may be looked for with certainty. But men learn a habit of caution by experience of cargo's much more perilous. In those masses of arondina bamboosifolia, beneath the table yonder, doubtless there are centipedes lurking, perhaps even scorpions, which have escaped the first inspection. Happily these pests are dull, half-stupified with the cold, when discovered, and no man here has been stung, circumspect as they are, but ants arrive as alert and as vicious as in their native realm. Distinctly they are no joke. To handle a consignment of epidendrum by cornutum demands some nerve. A very ugly species loves its hollow bulbs, which, when disturbed, shoots out with a lightning swiftness, and nips the arm or hand so quickly that it can seldom be avoided. But the most awkward cases to deal with are those which contain shomburgchia tipichinus. This superb orchid is so difficult to bloom that very few will attempt it. I have seen its flower-butt twice. Packers strongly approve the reluctance of the public to buy, since it restricts importation. The foreman has been laid up again and again. But they find pleasing curiosities also, tropic beetles and insects and cocoons. Dendrobiums in a special are favoured by moths. Dewardianum is loaded with their webs, empty as a rule. Here the two the men have preserved no chrysalids, but at this moment they have a few of unknown species. The farmer gets strange bits of advice sometimes, and strange offers of assistance. Talking of insects reminds him of a letter received last week. Here it is. Sirs, I have heard that you are large growers of orchids. Am I right in supposing that in their growth or production you are much troubled with some insect or caterpillar which retards or hinders their arrival at maturity, and that these insects or caterpillars can be destroyed by small snakes? I have tracts of land under my occupation, and if these small snakes can be of use in your culture of orchids, you might write, as I could get you some, on knowing what these might be worth to you. Yours truly. Then we mount to the potting-rooms where a dozen skilled workmen try to keep pace with the growth of the imported plants, taking up day by day those which thrust out roots so fast that postponement is injurious. The broad middle tables are heaped with peat and moss and leaf mould and white sand. At counters on either side unskilled labourers are sifting and mixing, while boys come and go laden with pots and baskets of teakwood and crocs and charcoal. These things are piled in heaps against the walls. They are stacked on frames overhead. They fill the semi-subterranean chambers of which we get a glimpse in passing. Our farm resembles a factory in this department. Ascending to the upper earth again and crossing the corridor, we may visit number one of those glass houses opposite. I cannot imagine, much more describe, how that spectacle would strike one to whom it was wholly unfamiliar. These buildings, there are twelve of them side by side, measure 180 feet in length, and the narrowest has 32 feet breadth. This, which we enter, is devoted to a Donta Glossum Crispum with a few master-valiers. There were 22,000 pots in it the other day. Several thousand have been sold, several thousand have been brought in, and the number at this moment cannot be computed. Our farmer has no time for speculative arithmetic. He deals in produce, wholesale. Telegraph an order for a thousand crispums, and you cause no stir in the establishment. You take it for granted that a large dealer only could propose such a transaction, but it does not follow at all. Nobody would credit unless he had talked with one of the great farmers on what enormous scale orchids are cultivated up and down by private persons. Our friend has a client who keeps his stock of a Donta Glossum Crispum alone at 10,000, but others, less methodical, may have more. Opposite to the door is a high staging, mounted by steps, with a gangway down the middle, and shelves descending on either hand. These shelves are crowded with fine plants of the glorious a Donta Glossum Crispum, each bearing one or two spikes of flour, which trail down into lace, arch upward. Not all are in bloom. That amazing sight may be witnessed for a month to come, for two months, with such small traces of decay as the casual visitor would not notice. So long and dense are the wreaths, so broad the flowers, that the structure seems to be festooned from top to bottom with snowy garlands. But there is more. Overhead hang rows of baskets, lessening in perspective with pendant sprays of bloom, and broad tables which edge the walls beneath that staging, display some thousands still, smaller, but not less beautiful. A sight which words could not portray, I yield in despair. The tillage of the farm is our business, and there are many points here which the amateur should note. Observe the bricks beneath your feet. They have a hollow pattern which retains the water, though your boots keep dry. Each side of the pathway lie shallow troughs, always full. Beneath that staging mentioned is a bed of leaves, interrupted by a tank here, by a group of ferns there, vividly green. Slender iron pipes run through the house from end to end, so perforated that on turning a tap, they soak these beds, fill the little troughs and hollow bricks, play in all directions down below, but never touch a plant. Under such constant drenching the leaf beds decay. Throwing up those gases and vapours in which the orchid delights at home. Thus the amateur should arrange his greenhouse, so far as he may. But I would not have it understood that these elaborate contrivances are essential. If you would beat nature, as here, making invariably such bulbs and flowers as she produces only under rare conditions, you must follow this system. But orchids are not exacting. The house opens at its further end in a magnificent structure designed especially to exhibit plants of warm species in bloom. It is 300 feet long, 26 wide, 18 high. The piping laid end to end would measure, as nearly as possible, one mile. We see a practical illustration of the resources of the establishment when it is expected to furnish such a show. Here are stored the huge specimens of Kimbidium loyanum, nine of which astounded the good people of Berlin with a display of one hundred and fifty flower spikes all open at once. We observe at least a score as well furnished, and hundreds which a royal gardener would survey with pride. They rise one above another in a great bank crowned and brightened by garlands of pale green and chocolate. Other Kimbidiums are here, but not the beautiful sea ebonyum. Its large white flowers erect on a short spike, not drooping like these, will be found in a cool house, smelt with delight before they are found. Further on we have a bank of dendrobiums, so densely clothed in bloom that the leaves are unnoticed. Lovely beyond all to my taste, if indeed one may make a comparison, is d. luteolum, with flowers of palest, tenderest primrose, rarely seen unhappily, for it will not reconcile itself to our treatment. Then again a bank of cat layers, of vanders, of miscellaneous genera. The pathway is hedged on one side with begonia corollina, an unimproved species, too struggling of growth and too small a flower, to be worth its room under ordinary conditions, but a glorious thing here, climbing to the roof, festooned at every season of the year with countless rosy sprays. Beyond this show-house lie the small structures devoted to hybridisation, but I deal with them in another chapter. Here also are the falionopsis, the very hot vanders, bolias, pescatorias, anike to chili, and such dainty but capricious beauties. We enter the second of the range of greenhouses, also devoted to adontaglossums, mastavalias, and cool genera, as crowded as the last. Pass down it to the corridor and return through number three, which is occupied by cat layers and such. There is a lofty mass of rock in front, with a pool below, and a pleasant sound of splashing water. Many orchids of the largest size are planted out here, kipropidium, cat layer, sobralia, phageous, loelia, zygopetalum, and a hundred more. Specimens, as the phrase runs, that is to say, they have 10, 20, 50 flower spikes. I attempt no more descriptions. To one who knows, the plain statement of fact is enough. One who does not is unable to conceive that sight by the aid of words. But the sobralias demand attention. They stand here, in clumps, two feet thick, bearing a wilderness of loveliest bloom, like irises magnified and glorified by heavenly enchantment. Nature designed a practical joke, perhaps, when she granted these noble flowers but one day's existence each, while dingy epidendrams last six months, or nine. I imagine that for statelyness and delicacy combined there are no plants that excel the sobralia. At any single point they may be surpassed, among orchids be it understood by nothing else in nature's realm, but their magnificence and grace together cannot be outshone. I must not dwell upon the marvels here, in front, on either side, and above. A hint is enough. There are baskets of loelia andkeps, three feet across, lifted bodily from the tree in their native forest, where they had grown, perhaps, for centuries. One of them, the white variety, too, which aesthetic infidels might adore, though they believed in nothing, opened a hundred spikes at Christmas time. We do not concern ourselves with minute reckonings here, but an enthusiastic novice counted the flowers blooming one day on that huge mass of loelia albeda, yonder, and they numbered two hundred and eleven, unless, as some say, this was the quantity of spikes, in which case one must have to multiply by two or three. Such incidents may be taken for granted at the farm. End of Section 12 Section 13 of About Orchids a Chat. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Peter Yersley. About Orchids a Chat by Frederick Boyle. Chapter 8 An Orchid Farm. Section 2 But we must not pass a new orchid, quite distinct and supremely beautiful, for which Professor Reichenbach has not yet found a name sufficiently appreciative. Only eight pieces were discovered, whence we must suspect that it is very rare at home. I do not know where the home is, and I should not tell if I did. Such information is more valuable than the surest tip for the Derby, or most secrets of state. This new orchid is a chiropetilon, of a very small size, but, like so many others, its flower is bigger than itself. The spike inclines almost at a right angle, and the pendant half is hung with golden bells, nearly two inches in length. Beneath it stands the very rare scarlet eutricularia, growing in the axils of its native Vraesia, as in a cup always full, but as yet the flower has been seen in Europe, only by the eyes of faith. It may be news to some that eutricularias do not belong to the orchid family, have, in fact, not the slightest kinship, though associated with it by growers, to the degree that Mr. Sander admits them to his farm. A little story hangs to the exquisite eutricularia cambelli. All importers are haunted by the spectral image of catlaya labiata, which in its true form had been brought to Europe only once, 70 years ago, when this book was written. Some time since, Mr. Sander was looking through the drawings of Sir Robert Schoenberg in the British Museum, among which is a most eccentric catlaya named, for reasons beyond comprehension, a variety of catlaya mossii. He jumped at the conclusion that this must be the long-lost catlaya labiata. So strong indeed was his confidence that he dispatched a man post-haste over the Atlantic to explore the Roraima mountain, and further gave him strict injunctions to collect nothing but this precious species for eight months. The traveller wandered up and down among the Indians, searching forest and glade, the wooded banks of streams, the rocks and clefts, but he found neither sea labiata nor that curious plant which Sir Robert Schoenberg described. Upon the other hand he came across the lovely eutricularia cambelli, and in defiance of instructions brought it down, but very few reached England alive. For six weeks they travelled on men's backs from their mountain home to the river Essaquibo, thence six weeks in canoe to Georgetown with twenty portages, and so aboard ship. The single chance of success lies in bringing them down undisturbed in the great clumps of moss which are their habitat, as is the Vriesia of other species. I will allow myself a very short digression here. It may seem unaccountable that a plant of large growth, distinct flower, and characteristic appearance should elude the eye of persons trained to such pursuits, and encouraged to spend money on the slightest prospect of success for half a century and more. But if we recall the circumstances, it ceases to astonish. I myself spent many months in the forests of Borneo, Central America, and the West African coast. After that experience I scarcely understand how such a quest for a given object can ever be successful unless by mere fortune. To look for a needle in a bottle of hay is a promising enterprise, compared with the search for an orchid clinging to some branch high up in that green world of leaves. As a matter of fact collectors seldom discover what they are specially charged to seek if the district be untraveled. The natives therefore untrained to grasp and assist their purpose. This remark does not apply to orchids alone, not by any means. Few besides the scientific, probably, are aware that the common Eucharist Amazonica has been found only once. That is to say, but one consignment has ever been received in Europe, from which all our millions in cultivation have descended. Where it exists in the native state is unknown, but assuredly this ignorance is nobody's fault. For a generation at least skilled explorers have been hunting. Mr. Sander has had his turn, and has enjoyed the satisfaction of discovering species closely allied as Eucharist Masterzii and Eucharist Sanderiana, but the old-fashioned bulb is still to seek. In this third greenhouse is a large importation of Catalea triane, which arrived so late last year that their sheaths have opened contemporaneously with sea mossy-eye. I should fear to hazard a guess how many thousand flowers of each are blooming now, as the Adondaglossums cover their stage with snow wreaths. So this is decked with upright plumes of Catalea triane, white and rose and purple, in endless varieties of tint, with many a streak of other hue between. Suddenly our guide becomes excited, staring at a basket overhead beyond reach. It contains a smooth-looking object, very green and fat, which must surely be good to eat. But this observation is alike, irrelevant and disrespectful. Why, yes, beyond all possibility of doubt, that is a spike, issuing from the axle of its fleshy leaf. Three inches long it is already, thick as a pencil, with a big knob of bud at the tip. Such pleasing surprises befall the orchidacean. This plant came from Borneo so many years ago that the record is lost, but the oldest servant of the farm remembers it as a poor cripple hanging between life and death, season after season. Cheerful as interesting is the discussion that arises, more like a vander than anything else the authorities resolve, but not a vander, commending it to the special care of those responsible we pass on. Here is the largest mass of catasatum ever found, or even rumoured, lying in ponderous bulk upon the stage, much as it lay in a Guatemalan forest. It is engaged in the process of plumping up. Orchids shrivel in their long journey, and it is the importer's first care to renew that smooth and wholesome rotundity, which indicates a conscience untroubled, a good digestion, and an assurance of capacity to fulfil any reasonable demand. Beneath the staging you may see myriads of withered sticks, clumps of shrunken and furrowed bulbs by the thousand, hung above those leaf-beds mentioned. They are plumping in the damp shade. The larger pile of catasatum there are two, maybe four feet long, three wide, and eighteen inches thick. How many hundreds of flowers it will bear passes computation. I remarked that, when broken up into handsome pots, it would fill a greenhouse of respectable dimensions. But it appears that there is not the least intention of dividing it. The farmer has several clients who will snap at this natural curiosity, when, in due time, it is put on the market. At the far end of the house stands another piece of rock work, another little cascade, and more marvels than I can touch upon. In fact, there are several which would demand all the space at my disposition. But happily one reigns supreme. This is a catlaya mossii, dependent of the catasatum, by very far the largest orchid of any kind that was ever brought to Europe. For some years Mr. Sander, so to speak, hovered around it, employing his shrewdest and most diplomatic agents. For this was not a forest specimen. It grew upon a high tree beside an Indian hut near Caracas, and belonged to him as absolutely as the fruit in his compound. His great-grandfather indeed had planted it, so he declared, but this is highly improbable. The giant has embraced two stems of the tree, and covers them both so thickly that the bare ends of wood at top alone betray its secret. For it was sawn off, of course, above and below. I took the dimensions as accurately as may be, with an object so irregular and prickly. It measures, the solid bulk of it, leaves not counted, as nearly as possible five feet in height and four thick. One plant observe, pulsating through its thousand limbs from one heart. At least I mark no spot where the circulation has been checked by accident or disease, and the pseudo-bulbs beyond have been obliged to start an independent existence. In speaking of Loelia elegans, I said that those Brazilian islanders who have lost it might find solace could they see its happiness in exile. The gentle reader thought this an extravagant figure of speech, no doubt, but it is not wholly fanciful. Indians of tropical America cherish a fine orchid, to the degree that in many cases no sum, and no offer of valuables, will tempt them to part with it. Ownership is distinctly recognised when the specimen grows near a village. The root of this feeling, whether superstition or taste, sense of beauty, rivalry in magnificence of church displays, I have not been able to trace. It runs very strong in Costa Rica, where the influence of the aborigines is scarcely perceptible, and there at least the latter motive is sufficient explanation. Glorious beyond all our fancy can conceive, must be the show in those lonely forest churches, which no European visits save the collector on a feast day. Mr. Russell, whose name is so familiar to botanists, left a description of the scene, that time he first behelds the floor de majo. The church was hung with garlands of it, he says, and such emotion seized him at the view that he choked. The statement is quite credible. Those who see that wonder now, prepared for its transcendent glory, find no words to express their feelings. Imagine an enthusiast beholding it for the first time, unworned, unsuspecting that earth can show such a sample of the flowers that bloomed in Eden. And not a single branch, but garlands of it. Mr. Russell proceeds to speak of bouquets of Mastavalia hariana, three feet across, and so forth. The natives showed him gardens devoted to this species, for the ornament of their church. It was not cultivated, of course, but evidently planted. They were acres in extent. The Indian, to whom this catlaya mossii belonged, refused to part with it at any price for years. He was overcome by a rifle of peculiar fascination, added to the previous offers. A magic lantern has very great influence in such cases, and the collector provides himself with one or more nowadays as part of his outfit. Under that charm, with forty-seven pounds in cash, Mr. Sander secured his first sea mossii alba, but it has failed hitherto in another instance, though backed by a hundred pounds in trade or dollars, at the Indian's auction. Thence we pass to a wide and lofty house, which was designed for growing Victoria Regia and other tropic water lilies. It fulfilled its purpose for a time, and I never beheld those plants under circumstances so well-fitted to display their beauty. But they generate a small black fly in myriads beyond belief, and so the culture of nymphaea was dropped. A few remain in manageable quantities, just enough to adorn the tank with blue and rosy stars, but it is arched over now with baskets as thick as they will hang, dendrobium, silogyny, onchidium, spathoglottis, and those species which love to dwell in the neighbourhood of steaming water. My vocabulary is used up by this time. The wonders here must go uncronicled. We have viewed but four houses out of twelve, a most cursory glance at that. The next also is intermediate, filled with cut layers, warm onchidiums, like astes, kipropidiums. The inventory of names alone would occupy all my space remaining. At every step I mark some object worth a note, something that recalls or suggests or demands a word, but we must get along. The sixth house is cool again, adontoglossums and such. The seventh is given to dendrobes, but facing us as we enter stands a likeasty skinnery, which illustrates in a manner almost startling the infinite variety of the orchid. I positively dislike this species, obtrusive, pretentious, vague in colour, and stiff in form, but what a royal glorification of it we have here. What exquisite veining and edging of purple or rose. What a velvet lip of crimson darkening to claret. It is merely a sport of nature, but she allows herself such glorious freaks in no other realm of her domain. And here is a new brassia just named by the pontiff of orchidology, Professor Reichenbach. Those who know the tribe of brassias will understand why I make no effort to describe it. This wonderful thing is yet more all over the shop than its kindred. Its dorsal sepal measures three inches in length, its tail five inches, with an enormous lip between. They term it the squid flower or octopus in Mexico, and a good name too, but in place of the rather weakly colouring habitual, it has a grand decision of character, though the tones are like pale yellow and greenish. Its raised spots, red and deep green, are distinct as points of velvet upon mazlin. In the eighth house we return to Adontoglossums and Coolgenera. Here are a number of hybrids of the natural class, upon which I should have a good deal to say if inexorable fate permitted. Natural hybrids are plants which seem species, but upon thoughtful examination and study are suspected to be the offspring of kindred and neighbours. Interesting questions arise in surveying fine specimens side by side, in flower, all attributed to a cross between Adontoglossum Lindelianum and Adontoglossum Crispum Alexandri, and all quite different. But we must get on to the ninth house, from which the tenth branches. Here is the stove, and twilight rains over that portion where a variety of super-tropic genera are plumping up, making roots, and generally reconciling themselves to a new start in life. Such dainty, delicate souls may well object to the apprenticeship. It must seem very degrading to find themselves laid out upon a bed of cinders and moss, hung up by the heels above it, and even planted therein. But if they have as much good sense as some believe, they may be aware that it is all for their good. At the end, in full sunshine, stands a little copse of Vandeterres, set as closely as their stiff branches will allow. Still we must get on. There are bits of wood hanging here so rotten that they scarcely hold together. Faintest dots of green upon them assure the experienced that, presently, they will be draped with pendant leaves, and presently again, we hope, with blue and white and scarlet flowers of eutricularia. From the stove opens a very long, narrow house, where cool genera are plumping, laid out on moss and potchards. Many of them have burst into strong growth. Pleonies are flowering freely as they lie. This farmer's crops come to harvest faster than he can attend to them. Things beautiful and rare and costly are measured here by the yard. So many feet of this pile up on the stage, so many of the other from all quarters of the world, waiting the leisure of these busy agriculturists. Nor can we spare them more than a glance. The next house is filled with adontoglossums, planted out like bedding stuff in a nursery, awaiting their turn to be potted. They make a carpet so close, so green, that flowers are not required to charm the eye as it surveys the long perspective. The rest are occupied just now with cargos of imported plants. My pages are filled, to what poor purpose, seeing how they might have been used for such a theme, no one could be so conscious as I. In the very first place I declare that this is no scientific chapter. It is addressed to the thousands of men and women in the realm who tend a little group of orchids lovingly, and mark the wonders of their structure with as much bewilderment as interest. They read of hybridisation, they see the result in costly specimens, they get books, they study papers on the subject, but the deeper their research commonly, the more they become convinced that these mysteries lie beyond their attainment. I am not aware of any treatise which makes a serious effort to teach the uninitiated, putting technical expressions on one side. Though that obstacle is grave enough, every one of those which has come under my notice takes the mechanical preliminaries for granted. All are written by experts for experts. My purpose is contrary. I wish to show how it is done so clearly that a child, or the dullest gardener, may be able to perform the operations. So very easy when you know how to set to work. After a single lesson in the genus Cipropidium alone, a young lady of my household amused herself by concerting the most incredible alliances, Dendrobium with a Dontoglossum, Epidendrum with Oncidium, Oncidium with a Dontoglossum, and so forth. It is unnecessary to tell the experienced that in every case the seed-vessel swelled. That matter will be referred to presently. I mention the incident only to show how simple are these processes, if the key be grasped. Amateur hybridisers of an audacious class are wanted, because hitherto operators have kept so much to the beaten paths. The names of Veitch and Domini and Seedon will endure when those of great savants are forgotten, but businessmen have been obliged to concentrate their zeal upon experiments that pay. Fantastic crosses mean, in all probability, a waste of time, space and labour. In fact, it is not until recent years that such attempts could be regarded as serious. So much the more creditable, therefore, are Monsieur Veitch's exertions in that line. But it seems likely to me that when hybridising becomes a common pursuit with those who grow orchids and the time approaches fast, a very strange revolution may follow. It will appear as I think that the enormous list of pure species, even genera, recognised at this date, may be thinned in a surprising fashion. I believe, timidly, as becomes the unscientific, that many distinctions which anatomy recognises at present as essential to a true species will be proved in the future to result from promiscuous hybridisation through eons of time. Proved, perhaps, is the word too strong, since human life is short, but such a mass of evidence will be collected that reasonable men can entertain no doubt. Of course, the species will be retained, but we shall know it to be a hybrid, the offspring, perhaps, of hybrids innumerable. I incline more and more to think that even genera may be disturbed in a surprising fashion, and I know that some great authorities agree with me outright, though they are unprepared to commit themselves at present. A very few years ago this suggestion would have been observed, in the sense that it wanted facts in support, as our ancestors have made it an article of faith that to fertilise an orchid was impossible for man, so we imagined until lately that genera would not mingle, but this belief grows unsteady. Though bi-generic crosses have not been much favoured, as offering little prospect of success, such results have been obtained already, that the field of speculation lies open to irresponsible persons like myself, when Catalaea has been allied with Sophronitis, Sophronitis with Epidendrum, Adontoglossum with Zygopetalum, Silogyne with Calanthi, one may credit almost anything. What should be stated on the other side will appear presently. How many hybrids have we now established and passing from hand to hand as freely as natural species? There is no convenient record, but in the trade list of a French dealer, those he is prepared to supply are set apart with Gallic Precision, they number 416. But imagination and commercial enterprise are not less characteristic of the gall than precision. In the excellent manual of Maceo Veitch, which has supplied me with a mass of details, I find 10 hybrid Calanthi's, 13 hybrid Catalaea's and 15 loelias, besides 16 natural hybrids, species thus classed upon internal evidence, and the wondrous Sophro Catalaea bi-generic, 14 dendrobiums and one natural, 87 kipropediums. But as for the number in existence, it is so great, and it increases so fast that Maceo Veitch have lost count. Phaegis, one, but several from alliance with Calanthi, Caesis, two, Epidendrum, one, Miltonia, one, and two natural, Mastavalia, ten, and two natural, and so on. And it must be borne in mind that these amazing results have been affected in one generation. Dean Herbert's achievements 80 years ago were not chronicled, and it is certain that none of the results survive. Mr. Sander of St. Albans preserves an interesting relic, the only one as yet connected with the science of Orchidology. This is Catalaea hybrida, the first of that genus raised by Domini, manager to Maceo Veitch, at the suggestion of Mr. Harris of Exeter to the stupifaction of our grandfathers. Mr. Harris will ever be remembered as the gentleman who showed Mr. Veitch's agent how orchids are fertilized, and started him on his career. This plant was lost for years, but Mr. Sander found it by chance in the collection of Dr. Janisch at Hamburg, and he keeps it as a curiosity, for in itself the object has no value, but this is a digression. Domini's early success, actually the very first of garden hybrids to flower in 1856, was Calanthi's Dominii, offspring of Calanthi's Masuka by C. Furcata, be it here remarked that the name of the mother or seed parent always stands first. Another interest attaches to C. Dominii. Both its parents belong to the veritrifolia section of Calanthi, the terrestrial species, and no other hybrid has yet been raised among them. We have here one of the numberless mysteries disclosed by hybridization. The epithytal Calanthi's, represented by C. Vestita, will not cross with the terrestrial, represented by C. veritrifolia, nor will the mules of either. We may give this up and proceed. In 1859, flowered C. Veitchi, from C. Rosia, still called as a rule, Limitodi's Rosia, by C. Vestita. No orchid is so common as this, and none more simply beautiful. But although the success was so striking and the way to it so easy, 20 years passed, before even Monsieur Veitch raised another hybrid Calanthi. In 1878, Seydon flowered Calanthi's Seydinii from C. Veitchi by C. Vestita. Others entered the field then, especially Sir Trevor Lawrence, Mr. Cookson, and Mr. Charles Wynne. But the genus is small, and they mostly chose the same families, often giving new names to the progeny, in ignorance of each other's labour. The mystery I have alluded to recurs again and again. Large groups of species refuse to intermarry with their nearest kindred, even plants which seem identical in the botanist's point of view. There is good ground for hoping, however, that longer and broader experience will annihilate some, at least, of the axiom's current in this matter. Thus it is repeated and published in the very latest editions of Standard Works, that South American Catleas, which will breed not only among themselves, but also with the Brazilian Luilias, decline an alliance with their Mexican kindred. But Baron Schroeder possesses a hybrid of such typical parentage as Catlea Cetrina, Mexican, and Catlea Intermedia, Brazilian. It was raised by Miss Harris of Lamberhurst, Kent, one single plant only, and it has flowered several times. M. Sander have crossed Catlea Gutata Leopoldi, Brazil, with Catlea Daoyana, Costa Rica, giving Catlea Chamberliana, Luilia Crista, Brazil, with the same, giving Luilia Catlea Palas, Catlea Cetrina, Mexico, with Catlea Intermedia, Brazil, giving Catlea Cetrina Intermedia, note Lamberhurst hybrid, end note, Luilia Flava, Brazil, with Catlea Skinneri, Costa Rica, giving Luilia Catlea Mariatiana, Luilia Pumila, Brazil, with Catlea Daoyana, Costa Rica, giving Luilia Catlea Normanii, Luilia Digbiana, Central America, with Catlea Mossiae, Venezuela, giving Luilia Catlea Digbiana Mossiae, Catlea Mossiae, Venezuela, with Luilia Cinebarina, Brazil, giving Luilia Catlea Phoebe. Not yet flowered and unnamed, raised in the nursery, are Catlea Catlea Cetrina, Mexico, with Luilia Purpurata, Brazil, Catlea Harrisoniai, Brazil, with Catlea Cetrina, Mexico, Luilia Ankeps, Mexico, with Epidendrum Celiari, U.S. Columbia. In other genera, there are several hybrids of Mexican and South American parentage, as Luilia Ankeps, by Epidendrum Celiari, Sophronitis Grandiflora, by Epidendrum Radicans, Epidendrum Xanthium, by Epidendrum Radicans. But among Kipropidiums, the easiest and safest of all orchids to hybridize, East Indian and American species are unfruitful. Mesiović obtained such a cross, as they had every reason to believe, in one instance. For sixteen years the plants grew and grew, until it was thought they would prove the rule by declining to flower. I wrote to Mesiović to obtain the latest news. They informed me that one has bloomed at last. It shows no trace of the American strain, and they have satisfied themselves that there was an error in the operation or the record. Again the capsules secured from the very many, by generic crosses, have proved time and again to contain not a single seed. In other cases the seed was excellent to all appearance, but it has resolutely refused to germinate. And further certain, by generic seedlings, have utterly ignored one parent. Zygopetalum macae has been crossed by Mr. Vić, Mr. Cookson, and others doubtless, with various adontoglossums. But the flower has always turned out Zygopetalum macae, pure and simple, which becomes the more unaccountable more one thinks of it. Hybrids partake of the nature of both parents, but they incline generally, as in the extreme cases mentioned, to resemble one much more strongly than the other. When a cat layer or loelia of the single leaf section is crossed with one of the two leaf, some of the offspring from the same capsule show two leaves, others one only, and some show one and two alternately, obeying no rule perceptible to us that present. So it is with the charming loelia mainardii, from loelia diana by catlea de losa, just raised by Mr. Sander, and named after the superintendent of his hybridising operations. Catlea de losa has two leaves, loelia diana, one. The product has two and one alternately. Sepples and petals are alike in colour rosey crimson, veined with a deeper blue, lip brightest crimson lake, long, broad and flat, curving in handsomely above the column, which is closely depressed after the manner of catlea de losa. The first by generic cross deserves a paragraph to itself, if only on that account, but its own merits are more than sufficient. Sofro catlea bait maniana was raised by Mr. Veich from Sofranitis Grandiflora by catlea intermedia. It flowered in August 1886, petals and sepples rosey scarlet, lip pale lilac bordered with amethyst and tipped with rosey purple. But one natural hybrid has been identified among dendrobes, the progeny doubtless of dendrobia crassinodi by D. Wardianum. Monsieur J. Lang have a fine specimen of this. It shows the growth of the latter species with the bloom of the former, but enlarged and improved. Several other hybrid crosses are suspected. Of artificial, we have not less than fifty. Phaeus, it is often spelt, P-H-A-J-U-S, is so closely allied with Calanthi that for hybridising purposes at least there is no distinction. Domini raised Phaeus iroratus from Phaeus grandifolius by Calanthi vestita. Seiden made the same cross, but using the variety Calanthi's var rubo oculata he obtained Phaeus purpurius. The success is more interesting because one parent is evergreen, the other Calanthi deciduous. On this account probably very few seedlings survive. They show the former habit. Mr. Cookson alone has yet raised a cross between two species of Phaeus, Phaeus Cooksoni from Phaeus wellicii by Phaeus tuberculosis. One may say that this is the best hybrid yet raised, saving Calanthi veicii if all merits be considered. Stakeliness of aspect, freedom in flowering, striking colour, ease of cultivation. One bulb will throw up four spikes. Twenty-eight have been counted in a twelve-inch pot. Each bearing perhaps thirty flowers. Seiden has made two crossings of Caesis, both from the exquisite Caesis practice ends. One of the loveliest flowers that heaven has granted to this world, but sadly fleeting. Nobody, I believe, has yet been so fortunate as to obtain seed from Caesis aurea. This species has the rare privilege of self-fertilization. We may well exclaim why, why, and it eagerly avails itself thereof, so soon as the flower begins to open. Thus, however watchful the hybridiser may be, here's the two. He has found the pollen masses melted in hopeless confusion before he can secure them. One hybrid epidendrum has been obtained. Epidendrum O'Brienianum from Epidendrum Evectum by Epidendrum radicans. The former purple, the latter scarlet, produce a bright crimson progeny. Miltonias show two natural hybrids and one artificial, Miltonia bluriana from Miltonia vexilaria by Miltonia rurslii. Both of these are commonly classed as adontoclots, and I refer to them elsewhere under that title. Monsieur Blur and Monsieur Veich made this cross about the same time, but the seedlings of the former flowered in 1889, of the latter in 1891. Here we see an illustration of the advantage which French horticulturists enjoy, even so far north as Paris. A clear sky and abundant sunshine make a difference of more than twelve months. When Italians begin hybridising we shall see marbles and Greeks and Egyptians. Mastavalias are so attractive to insects, by striking colour as a rule, and sometimes by strong smell, so very easily fertilised also that we should expect many natural hybrids in the genus. They are not forthcoming, however. Reichenbach displayed his scientific instinct by suggesting that two species submitted to him might probably be the issues of parents named. Since that date, Seiden has produced both of them from the crosses which Reichenbach indicated. We have three natural hybrids among Phalaenopsis. Phalaenopsis intermedia made its appearance in a lot of Phalaenopsis aphrodite imported 1852. Monsieur Porte, a French trader, brought home two in 1861. They were somewhat different, and he gave them his name. Monsieur Lowe imported several in 1874, one of which, being different again, was called after Mr. Breimer. Three have been found since, always among Phalaenopsis aphrodite. The finest known is possessed by Lord Rothschild. That these were natural hybrids could not be doubted. Seiden crossed Phalaenopsis aphrodite with Phalaenopsis rosia, and proved it. Our garden hybrids are two. Phalaenopsis FL Amys obtained from Phalaenopsis amablis by Phalaenopsis intermedia and Phalaenopsis harietti from Phalaenopsis amablis by Phalaenopsis violacea, named after the daughter of honourable Erastus Corning of Albany, U.S.A. Oncidiums yield only two natural hybrids at present, and those uncertain. Others are suspected. We have no garden hybrids, I believe, as yet. So it is with odontoglossums as has been said, but in the natural state they cross so freely that a large proportion of the species may probably be hybrids. I allude to this hereafter. I have left Cipropidiums to the last in these hasty notes, because that supremely interesting genus demands more than a record of dry facts. Darwin pointed out that Cipropidium represents the primitive form of orchid. He was acquainted with no links connecting it with the later and more complicated genera. Some have been discovered since that day, but it is nevertheless true that an enormous extinction must have swept away a multitude of intermediate forms, and left this single genus as the record of a former and more simple state of the great orchidacean order. The geographical distribution shows that Cipropidium was more common in early times, to speak vaguely, and covered an area yet more extensive than now, and the process of extermination is still working, as with other primitive types. Monsieur Weich pointed out that although few genera of plants are scattered so widely over the earth as Cipropidium, the species have withdrawn to narrow areas often isolated and remote from their kindred. Some are rare to the degree that we may congratulate ourselves upon the chance which put a few specimens in safety under glass before it was too late, for they seem to have become extinct even in this generation. Monsieur Weich gave a few striking instances. All the plants of Cipropidium ferianum known to exist have sprung from three or four casually imported in 1856. Two bits of Cipropidium superbians turned up among a consignment of Cipropidium barbatum. None have been found since, and it is doubtful whether the species survives in its native home. Only three plants of Cipropidium masterzianium have been discovered. They reached Mr Bull in a miscellaneous case of Cipropidium forwarded to him by the director of the Botanic Gardens at Buetzenorze in Java, but that gentleman and his successors in office have been unable to find another plant. These three must have reached the gardens by an accident as they left it, presented perhaps by some Dutchman who had been travelling. Cipropidium purpuratum is almost extinct at Hong Kong and is vanishing fast on the mainland. It is still found occasionally in the garden of a peasant, who we are told resolutely declines to sell his treasure. This may seem incredible to those who know the Chinaman, but Mr Ruebelang vouches for the fact. It is one more eccentricity to the credit of that people, who had quite enough already. Collectors expect to find a new habitat of Cipropidium purpuratum in Formosa when they are allowed to explore that realm. Even our native Cipropidium calciolus has almost disappeared. We get it now from Central Europe, but in several districts where it abounded, the supply grows continually less. The same report comes from North America and Japan. Fortunate it is but not surprising to the thoughtful observer that this genus grows and multiplies with singular facility when its simple wants are supplied. There is no danger that a species which has been rescued from extinction will perish under human care. This seems contradictory. How should a plant thrive better under artificial conditions than in the spot where nature placed it? The reason lies in that archaic character of the Cipropidium which Darwin pointed out. Its time has passed. Nature is improving it off the face of the earth. A gradual change of circumstances makes it more and more difficult for this primitive form of orchid to exist, and conscious of the fate impending, it gratefully accepts our help. One cause of extermination is easily grasped. Cipropeds have not the power of fertilizing themselves, except a single species, Cipropidium slimyii, which, accordingly, as we may say, is most difficult to import and establish. Moreover, it flowers so freely that the seedlings are always weak. In all species, the sexual apparatus is so constructed that it cannot be impregnated by accident, and few insects can perform the office. Dr. Herman Muller studied Cipropidium calciolus assiduously in this point of view. He observed only five species of insect which fertilize it. Cipropidium calciolus has perfume and honey, but none of the tropical species offer those attractions. Their color is not showy. The labellum proves to be rather a trap than a bait. Large insects which creep into it and duly bear away the pollen masses are caught and held fast by that sticky substance when they try to escape through the lateral passages, which smaller insects are too weak to force their way through. Natural hybrids occur so rarely that their existence is commonly denied. The assertion is not quite exact, but when we consider the habits of the genus, it ceases to be extraordinary that the Cipropids rarely cross in their wild state. Different species of cut layer, adontoglots, and the rest live together on the same tree side by side, but those others dwell apart in the great majority of cases, each species by itself, at a vast distance perhaps, from its kindred. The reason for this state of things has been mentioned. Natural laws have exterminated them in the spaces between, which are not so well fitted to maintain a doomed race. Doubtless Cipropids rarely fertilize, by comparison that is of course, in their native homes. The difficulty that insects find in performing that service has been mentioned. Mr. Godsef points out to me a reason far more curious than striking. When a bee displaces the pollen masses of a cat layer, for instance, they cling to its head or thorax by means of a sticky substance attached to the pollen cases, so on entering the next flower it presents the pollen outwards to the stigmatic surface. But in the case of a Cipropid, there is no such substance. The adhesive side of the pollen itself is turned outward, and it clings to any intruding substance. But this is the fertilizing part, therefore an insect, which by chance displaces the pollen mass, carries it off as one may say, the wrong side up. On entering the next flower it does not commonly present the surface necessary for impregnation, but a sterile globule, which is the backing thereof. We may suppose that in the earlier age, when this gene has flourished, as the later forms of orchids do now, it enjoyed some means of fertilization which have vanished. Under such disadvantages, it is not to be expected that seed capsules would be often found upon imported Cipropids. Messier Weich states that they rarely observed one among the myriads of plants that have passed through their hands. With some species, however, it is not by any means so uncommon. When Messier Thompson of Clovenfords bought a quantity of the first Cipropidiums by Serianum, which came upon the market, they found a number of capsules, and sowed them, obtaining several hundred fine plants. Pods are often imported on Cipropidium insignia, full of good seed. In the circumstances enumerated we have the explanation of an extraordinary fact. Hybrids or natural species of Cipropidiums artificially raised are stronger than their parents, and they produce finer flowers. The reason is that they get abundance of food in captivity, and all things are made comfortable for them, whilst nature, anxious to be rid of a form of plant no longer approved, starves and neglects them. The same argument enables us to understand why Cipropids lends themselves so readily to the hybridiser. Darwin taught us to expect that species which can rarely hope to secure a chance of reproduction will learn to make the process as easy and as sure as the conditions would admit that none of those scarce opportunities may be lost. And so it proves. Orchidaceans are apt to declare that everybody is hybridising Cipropids nowadays. At least, so many persons have taken up this agreeable and interesting pursuit that science has lost count of the less striking results. Briefly, the first hybrid Cipropidium was raised by Domini in 1869, and named after Mr. Harris, who, as has been said, suggested the operation to him. Sedan produced the next in 1874, Cipropidium sedanii, from Cipropidium slumii by Cipropidium longiflorum. Curious, as the single instance yet noted, in which seedlings turn out identical, whichever parent furnish the pollen masses, in every other case they vary when the functions of the parents are exchanged. End of section 14