CALANTHE HOUSE
For my own part I rank Calanthes among the most charming of flowers, and in the abstract most people agree with me perhaps. Yet they are contemned—the natural species—by all professed orchidists; and even hybrids mostly will be found in holes and corners, where no one is invited to pause and look at them. There are grand exceptions certainly. In Baron Schröder’s wondrous collection, the hybrid Calanthes hold a most honourable place. I have seen them in bloom there filling a big house, more like flowering shrubs than orchids—a blaze and a mass of colour almost startling. But these are unique, raised with the utmost care from the largest and rarest and most brilliant varieties which money unlimited could discover. The species used for hybridising were, as I understand, Cal. vestita oculata gigantea with Cal. Regnieri, Sanderiana, and igneo-oculata—but picked examples, as has been said.
Here we have, among others, Sandhurstiana, offspring of Limatodes rosea × Cal. vest. rubro-oculata. The individual flowers are large, and a spike may bear as many as forty; brightest crimson, with a large yellow ‘eye’ upon the lip. No mortal contemns this.
Bella (Veitchii × Turneri).—Sepals white, petals daintily flushed; lip somewhat more deeply flushed, with a white patch upon the disc, and in this a broad spot of the deepest but liveliest crimson.
Veitchii of course; but also the pure white form of Veitchii, which is by no means a matter of course.
William Murray (vest. rubro-oculata × Williamsii).—A hybrid notably robust, which is always a recommendation. White sepals and petals, a crimson patch on the lip, darkest at the throat.
Florence (bella × Veitchii).—Flowers large, of a deep rose, with purplish rose markings.
Clive.—The parentage of this hybrid is lost. Petals lively carmine, sepals paler. Throat yellow, lip white at base with carmine disc.
Victoria Regina (Veitchii × rosea).—The large flowers are all tender rose, saving a touch of sulphurous yellow at base of the lip.
Phaio-calanthe Arnoldiae is a bi-generic hybrid (C. Regnieri × Phajus grandifolius).—Sepals and petals yellow; lip rose-pink.
Here also I may mention some interesting Phajus hybrids:—
Phoebe (Sanderianus × Humblotii).—Sepals and petals light fawn-colour with a pinkish tone; lip crimson, veined with yellow.
Owenianus (bicolor Oweniae × Humblotti).—Sepals and petals milk-white, tinged with purplish brown. Lip like crimson velvet, orange at the base.
Ashworthianus (Mannii × maculatus).—Sepals and petals deep yellow, touched with ochre, lip similarly coloured, marked with heavy radiating lines of chocolate.
Cooksoni (Wallichii × tuberculosus).—The sepals and petals are those of Wallichii—buff tinged with reddish purple, china-white at back; the lip is that of tuberculosus—side-lobes yellow, spotted with crimson; disc white, with purple spots.
Marthae (Blumei × tuberculosus).—Sepals and petals pale buff. The large lip white, touched with pale rose, and thickly covered with golden-brown spots.
Very notable is the Zygo-colax hybrid, Leopardinus (Zygopetalum maxillare × Colax jugosus), of which we give an illustration.
Here is also the Zygopetalum hybrid, Perrenoudii (intermedium × Guatieri).—Sepals and petals green, heavily blurred with brown. Lip violet, deepening to purple.
Against the back wall of this house stands a little grove of Thunias Bensoniae and Marshalliana; the former magenta and purple, and the latter white with yellow throat, profusely striped with orange red. The wondrous intricacy of design so notable in the colouring of orchids is nowhere more conspicuous than in Thunia Marshalliana.
The Cymbidium House
Our ‘specimen’ Cymbidiums, that is, the large plants, are scattered up and down in other houses; for singly they are ornaments, and together their great bulk and long leaves would occupy too much space. Here are only small examples, or small species, planted out upon a bed of tufa amidst ferns and moss and begonias, Cyrtodeira Chontalensis, and the pretty ‘African violet,’ St. Paulii ionantha.
Cymbidiums are not showy, as the term applies to Cattleyas and Dendrobes. Their colour, if not white, is brown or yellow, with red-brown markings. We hear indeed of wonders to be introduced some day—of a gigantic species, all golden, which dwells in secluded valleys of the Himalayas, and another, bright scarlet, in Madagascar. In fact, this was collected again and again by M. Humblot and shipped to Europe; but every piece died before arrival. At length M. Humblot carried some home himself, and a few survived. Sir Trevor Lawrence bought two, I believe, but they died before flowering. So did all the rest.
But if the Cymbidiums of our experience make no display of brilliant colour, assuredly they have other virtues. When eburneum thrusts up its rigid spikes, in winter or earliest spring, crowned with great ivory blooms, the air is loaded with their perfume. I have seen a plant of Lowianum with more than twenty garlands arching out from its thicket of leaves, each bearing fifteen to twenty-five three-inch flowers, yellow or greenish, with a heavy bar of copper-red across the lip. And they grow fast. It is said that at Alnwick the Duke of Northumberland has specimens of unknown age filling boxes four feet square; each must be a garden in itself when the flowers open. And they last three months when circumstances are favourable. Sometimes also—but too rarely—the greenish yellow of Lowianum is changed to bright soft green. Nobody then could say that the colouring is not attractive.
We have here most of the recognised species—Cymbidiums are not much given to ‘sporting’: Devonianum, buff, freckled with dull crimson—lip purplish, with a dark spot on either side; Sinensis, small, brown and yellow, scented; Hookeri, greenish, dotted and blotched with purple; Traceyanum, greenish, striped with red-brown, lip white, similarly dotted, and the famous Baron Schröder variety thereof, which arrived in the very first consignment, but never since; pendulum, dusky olive, lip whitish, reddish at the sides and tip; and so on.
The only hybrids of Cymbidium known to me are eburneo-Lowianum and its converse, Lowiano-eburneum. The former is creamy yellow, with the V-shaped blotch of its father on the lip; the latter pure white, with the same blotch more sharply defined—which is to say, that Lowiano-eburneum is much the better of the two. Both are represented here.
Against the glass, right and left all round, are Coelogynes of sorts.
We have another house devoted mainly to Cymbidium, in which they have been planted out for some years, with results worth noting. I am convinced that in a future day amateurs who put the well-being of their orchids above all else—above money in especial!—will discard pots entirely. Every species perhaps—every one that I have observed, at least—grows more strongly when placed in a niche, of size appropriate, on a block of tufa. There are objections, of course—quite fatal for those who have not abundance of labour at command; for the compost very quickly turns sour under such conditions if not watered with great care and judgment. Moreover, what suits the plant suits also the insects which feed upon it. And if there be rats in the neighbourhood they soon discover that there is snug lying against the pipes, behind the wall of stone. Anxious mothers find it the ideal spot for a nursery. I cannot learn, however, that they do any wanton damage, beyond nipping off a few old leaves to make their beds, which is no serious injury. I have rats in my own cool house. Many years ago, on their first arrival probably, an Odontoglossum bulb was eaten up. Doubtless that was an experiment which did not prove satisfactory, for it has never been repeated. However, rats and insects can be kept down, if not exterminated.
The Cymbidiums here were rough pieces, odds and ends, consigned to this house to live or die. Now they are grand plants, in the way to become ‘specimens,’ set among ferns and creepers on a lofty wall of tufa, the base of which is clothed with Tradescantia and Ficus repens. In front and on one side are banks of tufa planted with Masdevallias, Lycastes, Laelia harpophylla, and so forth.