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Loelianceps Schroederiana |
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
Cyrrhopetalun, of very small size, but, like so many others, its
flower is bigger than itself. The spike inclines almost at a right
angle, and the pendent half is hung with golden bells, nearly two
inches in length. Beneath it stands the very rare scarlet
Utricularia, growing in the axils of its native Vriesia, 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 Utricularias 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 U. Campbelli. All importers are haunted by
the spectral image of Cattleya labiata, which, in its true form, had
been brought to Europe only once, seventy years ago, when this book
was written. Some time since, Mr. Sander was looking through the
drawings of Sir Robert Schomburgk, in the British Museum, among
which is a most eccentric Cattleya named—for reasons beyond
comprehension—a variety of C. Mossiæ. He jumped at the conclusion
that this must be the long-lost C. labiata. So strong indeed was his
confidence that he despatched 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 C. labiata nor that curious plant
which Sir Robert Schomburgk described. Upon the other hand, he came
across the lovely Utricularia Campbelli, 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 Essequibo; 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 untravelled—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 Eucharis amasonica 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
Eucharis Mastersii and Eucharis Sanderiana; but the old-fashioned
bulb is still to seek.
In this third greenhouse is a large importation of Cattleya Trianæ,
which arrived so late last year that their sheaths have opened
contemporaneously with C. Mossiæ. I should fear to hazard a guess
how many thousand flowers of each are blooming now. As the
Odontoglossums cover their stage with snow wreaths, so this is
decked with upright plumes of Cattleya Trianæ, white and rose and
purple in endless variety 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 axil 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
Vanda than anything else, the authorities resolve, but not a Vanda!
Commending it to the special care of those responsible, we pass on.
Here is the largest mass of Catasetum 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 fulfill 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
Catasetum—there are two—may be 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 rockwork,
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 Cattleya
Mossiæ, the pendant of the Catasetum, by very far the largest orchid
of any kind that was ever brought to Europe. For some years Mr.
Sander, so to speak, hovered round it, employing his shrewdest and
most diplomatic agents. For this was not a forest specimen. It grew
upon a high tree beside an Indian's hut, near Caraccas, 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 Lœlia 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 recognized 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. Roezl, whose name is so familiar to botanists, left a
description of the scene that time he first beheld the Flor de Majo.
The church was hung with garlands of it, he says, and such emotions
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 feeling: imagine
an enthusiast beholding it for the first time, unwarned,
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.
Roezl proceeds to speak of bouquets of Masdevallia Harryana 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 Cattleya Mossiæ 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 47l. in cash, Mr. Sander secured his first C. Mossiæ
alba, but it has failed hitherto in another instance, though backed
by 100l., in "trade" or dollars, at the Indian's option.
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 Nymphæa 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,
Cœlogene, Oncidium, 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 unchronicled.
We have viewed but four houses out of twelve, a most cursory glance
at that! The next also is intermediate, filled with Cattleyas, warm
Oncidiums, Lycastes, Cypripediums—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—Odontoglossums
and such; the seventh is given to Dendrobes. But facing us as we
enter stands a Lycaste Skinneri, 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 muslin.
In the eighth house we return to Odontoglossums and cool genera.
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 Odontoglossum Lindleyanum and Odontoglossum crispum
Alexandræ, and all quite different. But we must get on to the ninth
house, from which the tenth branches.
Here is the stove, and twilight reigns 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 Vanda teres, 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
Utricularia.
From the stove opens a very long, narrow house, where cool genera
are "plumping," laid out on moss and potsherds; many of them have
burst into strong growth. Pleiones 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 piled 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 Odontoglossums, 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 cargoes 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.
Footnotes:
[8] I was too sanguine. Vanda teres refused to thrive.
About Orchids
About Orchids, 1893 |
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