Oncidium Lanceanum 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—Onc. Lanceanum 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 Onc. papilio. 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 papilio 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 Natal 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 tantalizing to us, with which South Africa abounds. Very slowly do we lengthen the catalogue of them in our houses. There are gardeners, such as Mr. Cook at Loughborough, who grow Disa grandiflora like a weed. Mr. Watson of Kew demonstrated that Disa racemosa will flourish under conditions easily secured. I had the good fortune to do as much for Disa Cooperi, 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 Disa discolor, 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 feci! And the specimen in the Herbarium at Kew bears my name.
But legends should not be disregarded when it is certain that they 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 Phalœnopsis Sanderiana. It was a Zulu who put the discoverer of the new yellow Calla on the track. The blue Utricularia had been heard of and discredited long before it was found—Utricularias are not orchids indeed, but only botanists regard the distinction. The natives of Assam persistently assert that a bright yellow Cymbidium grows there, of supremest beauty, and we expect it to turn up one day; the Malagasy describe a scarlet one. But I am digressing.
Epidendrums 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 Epidendrums. Many worthless species, 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. Epid. rhizophorum has been lately rechristened Epid. 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 make 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. Epid. 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 D. bigibbum, of course, too well known for description; it dwells on the small islands in Torres Straits. This species flowered at Kew so early as 1824, but the plant died. Messrs. Loddiges, of Hackney, re-introduced it thirty years later. D. Johannis, from Queensland, brown and yellow, streaked with orange, the flowers curiously twisted. D. superbiens, from Torres Straits, rosy purple, edged with white, lip crimson. Handsomest of all by far is D. phalœnopsis. 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 Kew Gardens, from Timor Laüt, 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 D. ph. Statterianum. 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.
B. Beccarii 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 boa 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 B. barbigerum 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 instant's 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 a living thing. The purpose of these arrangements is to catch flies, which other species effect with equal ingenuity if less elaboration. Very pretty too are some of them, as B. Lobbii. 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 nectary, 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 should make an investment in Bulbophyllum Lobbii. Bulbophyllum Dearei also is pretty—golden ochre spotted red, with a wide dorsal sepal, very narrow petals flying behind, lower sepals 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 sepal shows membranes almost transparent, which have the effect of silver embroidery.
Until B. Beccarii was introduced, from Borneo, in 1867, the Grammatophyllums were regarded as monsters incomparable. Mr. Arthur Keyser, 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. Burbidge 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 Grammatophyllum 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. G. 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 Kew now, of which fine things are expected. G. Measureseanum, named after Mr. Measures, a leading amateur, is pale buff, speckled with chocolate, the ends of the sepals and petals charmingly tipped with the same hue. Within the last few months Mr. Sander has obtained G. 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 Gardens, Kew. This is assuredly the biggest orchid ever brought to Europe. Its snakey 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.