The lotus blows by every winding creek
might lead one to suppose he referred to the Nelumbium, were it not for the former contradictory line and the fact that the water-lily grows in the water itself. At any rate, sufficient authority exists to render it certain that some species of lotus yielding an intoxicating product was regarded sacred because of an indwelling god. But whatever species was really referred to by the classics as the charmed nepenthe—whether the fruit of the jujube-tree, or merely a fruit of the fabled garden of Hesperides, to us the name lotus at once brings up the gorgeous water-lily that once rocked upon the Nile, with its grand pink blossoms and its great green leaves. The Nelumbium has taken kindly to American soil, having increased in several marshy localities in New Jersey with astonishing rapidity, entirely crowding out the native growths of arrowhead, pickerel weed, and horsetail, where it has been placed and become established. With its great tendency to spread and multiply, it will soon supply the dragon-fly a classic flower to rest upon, and the great green frog a still more spacious paludal throne than that hitherto supplied by the shield of the native water-lily.
Suspended above the tank are numerous large plants of Lælia anceps and L. a. morada, leaning their long lavender sprays over the pool, like flocks of hovering butterflies. With them are also suspended large specimens of the staghorn and the hare’s foot ferns. Ferns and orchids invariably look well in combination. Palms being somewhat stiff themselves, do not associate so well with orchids, which need the relief of more graceful foliage. The hare’sfoot fern is appropriately named, the innumerable twisting rhizomes being soft and woolly, like the foot of a hare, and the fronds fine and feathery. Of all the Lælias, L. a. morada has the longest stems, and is among the largest and finest flowered. I grant the exquisite beauty and fragrance of the white form. Comparatively an inexpensive variety, the former is to be preferred to some others quoted at from ten to twenty times its marketable value. For in orchids, price very frequently does not represent intrinsic beauty of bloom; and mere rareties or orchidaceous curiosities are preferable in one’s neighbor’s collection. I am satisfied with fine specimens of a few of the easier grown and really beautiful species and varieties. A fine plant of Cypripedium œnanthum which my neighbor values at a thousand dollars is not worth my Lælia to me. Its flower is stiff in comparison, and its dorsal sepal, though strikingly rayed—white, striped with pink—has not the grace and beauty of the Lælia’s velvety petals and the exquisite blossoms of many other species. After all, may it not well be questioned whether the hardy pink lady-slipper has a rival among the numerous species and hybrids of the big labellums and long-tailed petals?
My orchids, like my roses, have their parasites—the green and yellow fly, the black thrip, the mealy-bug, the lesser snail, the scale. Of late years the yellow fly has become more numerous, though, with the green fly, the rose is his especial prey. It is difficult to know what plan to adopt against my insect enemies. The rule of three will not solve the difficulty, for a mean proportional does not exist. If my houses are too hot or the plants too dry, the red spider and black thrip swarm; if too cold, the mildew comes; if the weather be muggy, it is a summons for the green and yellow fly. Tobacco stems placed upon the hot-water pipes banish the black thrip where fumigating is of no avail. Fumigating alone will disperse the aphides. The smaller snail I must bate with lettuce leaves; the larger one must be searched for at night with a lantern. For mildew I must place sulphur and lime on the pipes, and the scale and mealy-bug demand their periodical sponge-bath. The cockroach sips treacle and is lost in the sweets. Wood-lice come from underneath the benches, and the lesser snail, despite all precautions, will sometimes bite off a flower-spike six times larger than himself. It all reminds me of a passage in the Faerie Queen:
A cloud of cumbrous gnats do him molest,
All striving to infixe their feeble stinges,
That from their noyance he no where can rest;
But with his clownish hands their tender wings
He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings.
Care and attention are ever the price of the flower.