Shortly after noon on a sale day, the habitual customers
of Messrs. Protheroe and Morris begin to assemble
in Cheapside. On tables of roughest plank round
the auction-rooms there, are neatly ranged the various
lots; bulbs and sticks of every shape, big and little,
withered or green, dull or shining, with a brown leaf
here and there, or a mass of roots dry as last year’s
bracken. No promise do they suggest of the brilliant
colours and strange forms buried in embryo within their
uncouth bulk. On a cross table stand some dozens
of “established” plants in pots and baskets,
which the owners would like to part with. Their
growths of this year are verdant, but the old bulbs
look almost as sapless as those new arrivals.
Very few are in flower just now—July and
August are a time of pause betwixt the glories of the
Spring and the milder effulgence of Autumn. Some
great Dendrobes—D. Dalhousianum—are
bursting into untimely bloom, betraying to the initiated
that their “establishment” is little more
than a phrase. Those garlands of bud were conceived,
so to speak, in Indian forests, have lain dormant
through the long voyage, and began to show a few days
since when restored to a congenial atmosphere.
All our interest concentrates in the unlovely things
along the wall.
The habitual attendants at an auction-room are always
somewhat of a family party, but, as a rule, an ugly
one. It is quite different with the regular group
of orchid-buyers. No black sheep there. A
dispute is the rarest of events, and when it happens
everybody takes for granted that the cause is a misunderstanding.
The professional growers are men of wealth, the amateurs
men of standing at least. All know each other,
and a cheerful familiarity rules. We have a duke
in person frequently, who compares notes and asks
a hint from the authorities around; some clergymen;
gentry of every rank; the recognized agents of great
cultivators, and, of course, the representatives of
the large trading firms. So narrow even yet is
the circle of orchidaceans that almost all the faces
at a sale are recognized, and if one wish to learn
the names, somebody present can nearly always supply
them. There is reason to hope that this will
not be the case much longer. As the mysteries
and superstitions environing the orchid are dispersed,
our small and select throng of buyers will be swamped,
no doubt; and if a certain pleasing feature of the
business be lost, all who love the flower and their
fellow-men alike will cheerfully submit.
The talk is of orchids mostly, as these gentlemen
stroll along the tables, lifting a root and scrutinizing
it with practised glance that measures its vital strength
in a second. But nurserymen take advantage of
the gathering to show any curious or striking flower
they chance to have at the moment. Mr. Bull’s
representative goes round, showing to one and another
the contents of a little box—a lovely bloom
of Aristolochia elegans, figured in dark red
on white ground like a sublime cretonne—and
a new variety of Impatiens; he distributes the latter
presently, and gentlemen adorn their coats with the
pale crimson flower.
