oncerns. But the public has still to be persuaded. It seems strange to the expert that delusions should prevail when orchids are so common and so much talked of; but I know by experience that

n under the influence of hallucinations that debar them from the most charming of quiet pleasures. I suspect also that the misapprehension of the public is largely due to the conduct of experts in the past. It was a rule with growers formerly, avowed among themselves, to keep th

a which will flourish anywhere if the frost be excluded; and as for species, a list of two thousand would not exhaust them probably. But a reasonable man may content himself with the great classes of Odontoglossum, Oncidium, Cypripedium, and Lycaste; among the varieties of these, which no one has ventured to calculate perhaps, he may spend a happy existence. They have every charm-foliage alw

eeks. Thus in the great collections there is such a show during April, May, and June as the Gardens of Paradise could not excel, and hardly a spike in the cool houses for the rest of the year. At a large establishment this signifies nothing; when the Odontoglossums go off other things "come on" with equal regularity. But the amateur, with his limited assortment, misses every bloom. He has no need for anxiety wi

lessing of this arrangement. It gives interest to the long dull days, when other plant life is at a standstill. It furnishes material for cheering meditations on a Sunday morning-is that a trifle? And at this season the pursuit is joy unmixed. We feel no anxious questionings, as we go about our daily business, whether the placens uxor forgot to remind Mary,

s a prodigious number of square miles, and a day's march from the track carries one into terra incognita. Still, the end will come. The English demand has stripped whole provinces, and now all the civilized world is entering into competition. We are sadly assured that Odontoglossums carried off will not be replaced for centuries. Most other genera of orchid propagate so freely that wholesale depredations are made good in very few years. For reasons beyond our comprehension as yet, the Odontoglossum stands in different case. No one in England has raised a plant from seed-that we may venture to say definitely. Mr. Cookson and Mr. Veitch, perhaps others also, have obtained living germs, but they died incontinently. Frenchmen, aided by the climate, have been rather more successful. MM. Bleu and Moreau have both flowered seedling Odontoglots. M. Jacob, who takes charge of M. Edmund de Rothschild's orchid

the secret of their reluctance to fertilize; but I will offer no comments, because the more one reflects the more puzzling it becomes. Evidently the seed must be carried above and must fall below that limit, under circumstances which, to our apprehension, seem just as favourable as those at

sh or Peruvian artist, Tagala. A very curious mistake Lindley fell into on either point. The scientific error does not concern us, but he represented the colouring of the flower as yellow with a purple centre. So Tagala painted it, and his drawing survives. It is an odd little story. He certainly had Hartweg's bloom before him, and that certainly was white. But then again yellow Alexandr?s have

ut they have mostly dropped the practice. Correspondents forward a shipment from time to time. The expenses of the collector are heavy, even if he draw no more than his due-and the temptation to make up a fancy bill cannot be resisted by some weak mortals. Then, grave losses are always probable-in the case of South American importations, certain. It has happened not once but a hundred times that the toil of months, the dangers, the sufferings, and the hard money expended go to absolute waste. Twenty or thirty thousand plants or more an honest man collects, brings down from the mountains or the forests, packs carefully, and ship

comes as regularly as Sunday; where from month to month he found no one with whom to exchange a word. I could make out a startling list of the martyrs of orchidology. Among Mr. Sander's collectors alone, Falkenberg perished at Panama, Klaboch in Mexico, Endres at Rio Hacha, Wallis in Ecuador, Schroeder in Sierra Leone, Arnold on the Orinoco, Digance in Brazil, Brown in Madagascar. Sir Trevor Lawrence mentions a case where the zealous explorer "waded for a fortnight up to his middle in mud," searching for a plant he had heard of. I have not identified this instance of devotion, but we know of rarities which would demand perseverance and suffering

but orchid-farming is a close and secret business. The arrangement concluded in legal form, he hires natives, twenty or fifty or a hundred, as circumstances advise, and sends them to cut down trees, building meantime a wooden stage of sufficient length to bear the plunder expected. This is used for cleaning and drying the plants brought in. Afterwards, if he be prudent, he follows his lumber-men, to see that their indolence does not shirk the big trunks-which give extra trouble naturally, though they yield the best and largest return. It is a terribly wasteful process. If we estimate that a good tree has been felled for every three scraps of Odontoglossum which are now established in Europe, that will be no exaggeration. And for many years past they have been arriving by hundreds of thousands annually!

ican company has established a service of flat-bottomed steamers which cover the distance in seven days, thus reducing the risks of the journey by one-half. But they are still terrible. Not a breath of wind stirs the air at that season, for the collector cannot choose his time. The boxes are piled on deck; even the pitiless sunshine is not so deadly as the stewing heat below. He has a store of blankets to cover them, on which he lays a thatch of palm-leaves, and all day long he souses the pile with water; but too well the poor fellow knows that mischief is busy down below. Another anxiety possesses him too. It may very well be that on arrival at Savanilla he has to wait days in that sweltering atmosphere for the Royal Mail steamer. And when it comes in, his troubles do not cease, for the stowage of the precious cargo is vastly important. On deck it will almost certainly be injured by salt water. In the hold it will ferment. Amidships it is apt to be baked by the engine fire. Whilst writing I

itle, it is this, in my judgment. Possibly it was some Indian report which had slipped his recollection that led Roezl to predict the discovery of a new Odontoglot, unlike any other, in the very district where Od. Harryanum was found after his death, though the story is quoted as an example of that instinct which guides the heaven-born collector. The first plants came unannounced in a small box sent by Se?or Pantocha, of Colombia, to Messrs. Horsman in 1885, and they were flowered next year by Messrs. Veitch. The dullest

ssums. Speculative as is the business of importing the northern species, to gather those of Peru and Ecuador is almost desperate. The roads of Colombia are good, the population civilized, conveniences abound, if we compare that region with the orchid-bearing territories of the south. There is a fortune to be secured by anyone who will bring to market a lot of O. n?veum in fair condition. Its habitat is perfectly well known. I am not aware that it has a delicate constitution; but no collector is so rash or so enthusiastic as to try that adventure again, now that its perils are understood; and no employer is so reckless as to urge him. The true variety of O. Hallii stands in much the same case. To obtain it the explorer must march in the bed of a torrent and

ng all manner of delightful complications. How many can trace the lineage of Mr. Bull's Od. delectabile-ivory white, tinged with rose, strikingly blotched with red and showing a golden labellum? or Mr. Sander's Od. Alberti-Edwardi, which has a broad soft margin of gold about its stately petals? Another is rosy white, closely splashed with pale purpl

our. But there are tremendous exceptions. In the first place, Lycaste Skinneri alba, the pure white variety, beggars all description. Its great flower seems to be sculptured in the snowiest of transparent marble. That stolid pretentious air which offends one-offends me, at least-in the coloured examples, becomes virginal dignity in this case. Then, of the normal type there are more than a hundre

table, night and day, for months, without change perceptible. Mr. Williams names an instance where a L. Skinneri, bought in full bloom on February 2, was kept in a sitting-room till May 18, when the purchaser took it back, still handsome. I have heard cases more surprising. Of species somewhat less common there is L. aromatica, a little gem, which throws up an indefinite number of short spikes, each crowned with a greenish yellow triangular sort of cup, deliciously scented. I am acquainted with no flower that excites such enthusiasm among ladies who fancy Messrs. Liberty's style of toilette; sad experience tells me that ten commandments or twenty will not restrain them from appropriating it. L. cruenta is almost as tempting. As for L. leucanthe, an exquisite combination of pale g

olus, by no means insignificant; it can be purchased from the dealers, but it is almost extinct in this country now. America furnishes a variety of species; which ought to be hardy. They will bear a frost below zero, but our winter damp is intolerable. Mr. Godseff tells me that he has seen C. spectabile growing like any water-weed in the bogs of New Jersey, where it is frozen hard, roots and all, for several months of the year; but very few survive the season in this country, even if protected. Those fine specimens so common at our spring shows are imported in the dry state. From the

introduced. A reader may form a notion of the difference when I state that a small plant of exceptional merit sold for thirty guineas a short time ago-it was C. insigne, but glorified. This ranks among the fascinations of orchid culture. You may buy a lot of some common kind, imported, at a price representing coppers for each individual, and among them m

re is no visible connection betwixt paper and Indian orchids. By discreet inquiries, however, it was ascertained that one of the lady's sons had a tea-plantation in Assam. No more was needed. By the next mail Mr. Forstermann started for that vague destination, and in process of time reached Mr. Spicer's bungalow. There he asked for "a job." None could be found for him; but tea-planters are hospitable, and the stranger was invited to stop a day or two. But he could not lead the conversation towards orchids-perhaps because his efforts were too clever, perhaps because his host took no interest in the subject. One day, however, Mr. Spicer's manager invited him to go shooting, and casually remarked "we shall pass the spot where I found those orchids they'r

hids to science.[3] Then its endless variations of form, its astonishing oddities, its wide range of hues, its easy culture, its readiness to hybridize and to ripen seed, the certainty, by comparison, of rearing the proceeds, each of these merits appeals to one or other of orchid-growers. Many of the species which come from torrid lands, in

k, and great honour, to find Masdevallia Veitchii-so long, so often, so laboriously searched for from that day to this, but never even heard of. To collect another shipment of that glorious orchid, Mr. Pearce sailed for Peru, in the service, I think, of Mr. Bull. Unhappily-for us all as well as for himself-he was detained at Panama. Somewhere in those p

den yellow is the colour that would have been wanting in our cool houses had not the Oncidium supplied it. Shades of lemon and buff are frequent among Odontoglossums, but, in a rough, general way of speaking, they have a white ground. Masdevallias give us scarlet and orange and purple; Lycastes, green and dull yellow; Sophronitis, crimson; Mesospinidium, rose, and so forth. Blue must not be looked for. Even counting the new Utricularia for an orchid, as most people do, there are, I think, but five species that will live among us at present, in all the prodigious family, showing this colour; and every one of them is very "hot." Thus it appears that the Oncidium fills a gap-and how gloriously! There is no such pure gold in the

were allowed to stretch. The flowers are small comparatively, clear bronze-brown, highly polished, so closely and daintily frilled round the edges that a fairy goffering-iron could not give more regular effects, and outlined by a narrow band of gold. Onc. serratum has a much larger bloom, but less compact, rather fly-away indeed, its sepals widening gracefully from a narrow neck. Excessively curious is the disposition of the petals, which close their tips to form a circle of brown and gold around the column. The purpose of this extraordinary arrangement-unique a

er hue, which again, towards the margin, becomes white. These changes of tone are not gradual, but as clear as a brush could make them. Botanists must long to dissect this extraordinary flower, but the opportunity seldom occurs. It is desperately puzzling to understand how nature has packed away the component parts of its inflorescence, so as to resolve them into four narrow arms and a

tartling combination in hues than any other-but one m

washing demands labour for which they have no time. This is a very reasonable objection. But though the smoke of tobacco is actual ruination, no plant whatever suffers from the steam thereof. An ingenious Frenchman has invented and patented in England lately a machine called the Thanatophore, which I confidentl

s enjoyment they give but light, shade from the summer sun, prot