About orchids

by Frederick Boyle

Opposite the door is a high staging, mounted by steps, with a gangway down the middle and shelves descending on either hand. Those shelves are crowded with fine plants of the glorious O. crispum, each bearing one or two spikes of flower, which trail down, interlace, arch upward. Not all are in bloom; that amazing sight may be witnessed for a month to come—for two months, with such small traces of decay as the casual visitor would not notice. So long and dense are the wreaths, so broad the flowers, that the structure seems to be festooned from top to bottom with snowy garlands. But there is more. Overhead hang rows of baskets, lessening in perspective, with pendent sprays of bloom. And broad tables which edge the walls beneath that staging display some thousands still, smaller but not less beautiful. A sight which words could not portray. I yield in despair.

The tillage of the farm is our business, and there are many points here which the amateur should note. Observe the bricks beneath your feet. They have a hollow pattern which retains the water, though your boots keep dry. Each side of the pathway lie shallow troughs, always full. Beneath that staging mentioned is a bed of leaves, interrupted by a tank here, by a group of ferns there, vividly green. Slender iron pipes run through the house from end to end, so perforated that on turning a tap they soak these beds, fill the little troughs and hollow bricks, play in all directions down below, but never touch a plant. Under such constant drenching the leaf-beds decay, throwing up those gases and vapours in which the orchid delights at home. Thus the amateur should arrange his greenhouse, so far as he may. But I would not have it understood that these elaborate contrivances are essential. If you would beat Nature, as here, making invariably such bulbs and flowers as she produces only under rare conditions, you must follow this system. But orchids are not exacting.

The house opens, at its further end, in a magnificent structure designed especially to exhibit plants of warm species in bloom. It is three hundred feet long, twenty-six wide, eighteen high—the piping laid end to end, would measure as nearly as possible one mile: we see a practical illustration of the resources of the establishment, when it is expected to furnish such a show. Here are stored the huge specimens of Cymbidium Lowianum, nine of which astounded the good people of Berlin with a display of one hundred and fifty flower spikes, all open at once. We observe at least a score as well furnished, and hundreds which a royal gardener would survey with pride. They rise one above another in a great bank, crowned and brightened by garlands of pale green and chocolate. Other Cymbidiums are here, but not the beautiful C. eburneum. Its large white flowers, erect on a short spike, not drooping like these, will be found in a cool house—smelt with delight before they are found.

Further on we have a bank of Dendrobiums, so densely clothed in bloom that the leaves are unnoticed. Lovely beyond all to my taste, if, indeed, one may make a comparison, is D. luteolum, with flowers of palest, tenderest primrose, rarely seen unhappily, for it will not reconcile itself to our treatment. Then again a bank of Cattleyas, of Vandas, of miscellaneous genera. The pathway is hedged on one side with Begonia coralina, an unimproved species too straggling of growth and too small of flower to be worth its room under ordinary conditions; but a glorious thing here, climbing to the roof, festooned at every season of the year with countless rosy sprays.

Beyond this show-house lie the small structures devoted to "hybridization," but I deal with them in another chapter. Here also are the Phalœnopsis, the very hot Vandas, Bolleas, Pescatoreas, Anæctochili, and such dainty but capricious beauties.

We enter the second of the range of greenhouses, also devoted to Odontoglossums, Masdevallias, and "cool" genera, as crowded as the last; pass down it to the corridor, and return through number three, which is occupied by Cattleyas and such. There is a lofty mass of rock in front, with a pool below, and a pleasant sound of splashing water. Many orchids of the largest size are planted out here—Cypripedium, Cattleya, Sobralia, Phajus, Lœlia, Zygopetalum, and a hundred more, "specimens," as the phrase runs—that is to say, they have ten, twenty, fifty, flower spikes. I attempt no more descriptions; to one who knows, the plain statement of fact is enough, one who does not is unable to conceive that sight by the aid of words. But the Sobralias demand attention. They stand here in clumps two feet thick, bearing a wilderness of loveliest bloom—like Irises magnified and glorified by heavenly enchantment. Nature designed a practical joke perhaps when she granted these noble flowers but one day's existence each, while dingy Epidendrums last six months, or nine. I imagine that for stateliness and delicacy combined there are no plants that excel the Sobralia. At any single point they may be surpassed—among orchids, be it understood, by nothing else in Nature's realm—but their magnificence and grace together cannot be outshone.

I must not dwell upon the marvels here, in front, on either side, and above—a hint is enough. There are baskets of Lœlia anceps three feet across, lifted bodily from the tree in their native forest where they had grown perhaps for centuries. One of them—the white variety, too, which æsthetic infidels might adore, though they believed in nothing—opened a hundred spikes at Christmas time; we do not concern ourselves with minute reckonings here. But an enthusiastic novice counted the flowers blooming one day on that huge mass of Lœlia albida yonder, and they numbered two hundred and eleven—unless, as some say, this was the quantity of "spikes," in which case one must have to multiply by two or three. Such incidents maybe taken for granted at the farm.

Loelianceps Schroederiana.
Reduced to One Sixth

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.