The Frontino vexillarium grows "cooler," has a much larger bloom, varies in hue from purest white to deepest red, and flowers in May or June. The most glorious of these things, however, is O. vex. superbum, a plant of the greatest rarity, conspicuous for its blotch of deep purple in the centre of the lip, and its little dot of the same on each wing. Doubtless this is a natural hybrid betwixt the Antioquia form and Odontoglossum Roezlii, which is its neighbour. The chance of finding a bit of superbum in a bundle of the ordinary kind lends peculiar excitement to a sale of these plants. Such luck first occurred to Mr. Bath, in Stevens' Auction Rooms. He paid half-a-crown for a very weakly fragment, brought it round, flowered it, and received a prize for good gardening in the shape of seventy-two pounds, cheerfully paid by Sir Trevor Lawrence for a plant unique at that time. I am reminded of another little story. Among a great number of Cypripedium insigne received at St. Albans, and "established," Mr. Sander noted one presently of which the flower-stalk was yellow instead of brown, as is usual. Sharp eyes are a valuable item of the orchid-grower's stock-in-trade, for the smallest peculiarity among such "sportive" objects should not be neglected. Carefully he put the yellow stalk aside—the only one among thousands, one might say myriads, since C. insigne is one of our oldest and commonest orchids, and it never showed this phenomenon before. In due course the flower opened, and proved to be all golden! Mr. Sander cut his plant in two, sold half for seventy-five pounds to a favoured customer, and the other half, publicly, for one hundred guineas. One of the purchasers has divided his plant now and sold two bits at 100 guineas. Another piece was bought back by Mr. Sander, who wanted it for hybridizing, at 250 guineas—not a bad profit for the buyer, who has still two plants left. Another instance occurs to me while I write—such legends of shrewdness worthily rewarded fascinate a poor journalist who has the audacity to grow orchids. Mr. Harvey, solicitor, of Liverpool, strolling through the houses at St. Albans on July 24, 1883, remarked a plant of Lœlia anceps, which had the ring-mark on its pseudo-bulb much higher up than is usual. There might be some meaning in that eccentricity, he thought, paid two guineas for the little thing, and on December 1, 1888, sold it back to Mr. Sander for 200l. It proved to be L. a. Amesiana, the grandest form of L. anceps yet discovered—rosy white, with petals deeply splashed; thus named after F.L. Ames, an American amateur. Such pleasing opportunities might arise for you or me any day.
The first name that arises to most people in thinking of warm orchids is Cattleya, and naturally. The genus Odontoglossum alone has more representatives under cultivation. Sixty species of Cattleya are grown by amateurs who pay special attention to these plants; as for the number of "varieties" in a single species, one boasts forty, another thirty, several pass the round dozen. They are exclusively American, but they flourish over all the enormous space between Mexico and the Argentine Republic. The genus is not a favourite of my own, for somewhat of the same reason which qualifies my regard for O. vexillarium. Cattleyas are so obtrusively beautiful, they have such great flowers, which they thrust upon the eye with such assurance of admiration! Theirs is a style of effect—I refer to the majority—which may be called infantine; such as an intelligent and tasteful child might conceive if he had no fine sense of colour, and were too young to distinguish a showy from a charming form. But I say no more.
The history of Orchids long established is uncertain, but I believe that the very first Cattleya which appeared in Europe was C. violacea Loddigesi, imported by the great firm whose name it bears, to which we owe such a heavy debt. Two years later came C. labiata, of which more must be said; then C. Mossiæ, from Caraccas; fourth, C. Trianæ named after Colonel Trian, of Tolima, in the United States of Colombia. Trian well deserved immortality, for he was a native of that secluded land—and a botanist! It is a natural supposition that his orchid must be the commonest of weeds in its home; seeing how all Europe is stocked with it, and America also, rash people might say there are millions in cultivation. But it seems likely that C. Trianæ was never very frequent, and at the present time assuredly it is so scarce that collectors are not sent after it. Probably the colonel, like many other savants, was an excellent man of business, and he established "a corner" when he saw the chance. C. Mossiæ stands in the same situation—or indeed worse; it can scarcely be found now. These instances convey a serious warning. In seventy years we have destroyed the native stock of two orchids, both so very free in propagating that they have an exceptional advantage in the struggle for existence. How long can rare species survive, when the demand strengthens and widens year by year, while the means of communication and transport become easier over all the world? Other instances will be mentioned in their place.
Island species are doomed, unless, like Lœlia elegans, they have inaccessible crags on which to find refuge. It is only a question of time; but we may hope that Governments will interfere before it is too late. Already Mr. Burbidge has suggested that "some one" who takes an interest in orchids should establish a farm, a plantation, here and there about the world, where such plants grow naturally, and devote himself to careful hybridization on the spot. "One might make as much," he writes, "by breeding orchids as by breeding cattle, and of the two, in the long run, I should prefer the orchid farm." This scheme will be carried out one day, not so much for the purpose of hybridization as for plain "market-gardening;" and the sooner the better.
The prospect is still more dark for those who believe—as many do—that no epiphytal orchid under any circumstances can be induced to establish itself permanently in our greenhouses as it does at home. Doubtless, they say, it is possible to grow them and to flower them, by assiduous care, upon a scale which is seldom approached under the rough treatment of Nature. But they are dying from year to year, in spite of appearances. That it is so in a few cases can hardly be denied; but, seeing how many plants which have not changed hands since their establishment, twenty or thirty or forty years ago, have grown continually bigger and finer, it seems much more probable that our ignorance is to blame for the loss of those species which suddenly collapse. Sir Trevor Lawrence observed the other day: "With regard to the longevity of orchids, I have one which I know to have been in this country for more than fifty years, probably even twenty years longer than that—Renanthera coccinea." The finest specimens of Cattleya in Mr. Stevenson Clarke's houses have been "grown on" from small pieces imported twenty years ago. If there were more collections which could boast, say, half a century of uninterrupted attention, we should have material for forming a judgment; as a rule, the dates of purchase or establishment were not carefully preserved till late years.
But there is one species of Cattleya which must needs have seventy years of existence in Europe, since it had never been re-discovered till 1890. When we see a pot of C. labiata, the true, autumn-flowering variety, more than two years old, we know that the very plant itself must have been established about 1818, or at least its immediate parent—for no seedling has been raised to public knowledge.[4]
In avowing a certain indifference to Cattleyas, I referred to the bulk, of course. The most gorgeous, the stateliest, the most imperial of all flowers on this earth, is C. Dowiana—unless it be C. aurea, a "geographical variety" of the same. They dwell a thousand miles apart at least, the one in Colombia, the other in Costa Rica; and neither occurs, so far as is known, in the great intervening region. Not even a connecting link has been discovered; but the Atlantic coast of Central America is hardly explored, much less examined. In my time it was held, from Cape Camarin to Chagres, by independent tribes of savages—not independent in fact alone, but in name also. The Mosquito Indians are recognized by Europe as free; the Guatusos kept a space of many hundred miles from which no white man had returned; when I was in those parts, the Talamancas, though not so unfriendly, were only known by the report of adventurous pedlars. I made an attempt—comparatively spirited—to organize an exploring party for the benefit of the Guatusos, but no single volunteer answered our advertisements in San José de Costa Rica; I have lived to congratulate myself on that disappointment. Since my day a road has been cut through their wilds to Limon, certain luckless Britons having found the money for a railway; but an engineer who visited the coast but two years ago informs me that no one ever wandered into "the bush." Collectors have not been there, assuredly. So there may be connecting links between C. Dowiana and C. aurea in that vast wilderness, but it is quite possible there are none.
Words could not picture the glory of these marvels. In each the scheme of colour is yellow and crimson, but there are important modifications. Yellow is the ground all through in Cattleya aurea—sepals, petals, and lip; unbroken in the two former, in the latter superbly streaked with crimson. But Cattleya Dowiana shows crimson pencillings on its sepals, while the ground colour of the lip is crimson, broadly lined and reticulated with gold. Imagine four of these noble flowers on one stalk, each half a foot across! But it lies beyond the power of imagination.
C. Dowiana was discovered by Warscewicz about 1850, and he sent home accounts too enthusiastic for belief. Steady-going Britons utterly refused to credit such a marvel—his few plants died, and there was an end of it for the time. I may mention an instance of more recent date, where the eye-witness of a collector was flatly rejected at home. Monsieur St. Leger, residing at Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, wrote a warm description of an orchid in those parts to scientific friends. The account reached England, and was treated with derision. Monsieur St. Leger, nettled, sent some dried flowers for a testimony; but the mind of the Orchidaceous public was made up. In 1883 he brought a quantity of plants and put them up at auction; nobody in particular would buy. So those reckless or simple or trusting persons who invested a few shillings in a bundle had all the fun to themselves a few months afterwards, when the beautiful Oncidium Jonesianum appeared, to confound the unbelieving. It must be added, however, that orchid-growers may well become an incredulous generation. When their judgment leads them wrong we hear of it, the tale is published, and outsiders mock. But these gentlemen receive startling reports continually, honest enough for the most part. Much experience and some loss have made them rather cynical when a new wonder is announced. The particular case of Monsieur St. Leger was complicated by the extreme resemblance which the foliage of Onc. Jonesianum bears to that of Onc. cibolletum, a species almost worthless. Unfortunately the beautiful thing declines to live with us—as yet.
Cattleya Dowiana was rediscovered by Mr. Arce, when collecting birds: it must have been a grand moment for Warscewicz when the horticultural world was convulsed by its appearance in bloom. Cattleya aurea had no adventures of this sort. Mr. Wallis found it in 1868 in the province of Antioquia, and again on the west bank of the Magdalena; but it is very rare. This species is persecuted in its native home by a beetle, which accompanies it to Europe not infrequently—in the form of eggs, no doubt. A more troublesome alien is the fly which haunts Cattleya Mendellii, and for a long time prejudiced growers against that fine species, until, in fact, they had made a practical and rather costly study of its habits. An experienced grower detects the presence of this enemy at a glance. It pierces an "eye"—a back one in general, happily—and deposits an egg in the very centre. Presently this growth begins to swell in a manner that delights the ingenuous horticulturist, until he remarks that its length does not keep pace with its breadth. But one remedy has yet been discovered—cutting off any suspected growth. We understand now that C. Mendellii is as safe to import as any other species, unless it be gathered at the wrong time.[5]