At the same time Clarke followed Gardner’s track
through the Pedro Bonita and Topsail Mountains.
Then Osmers traced the whole coast-line of the Brazils
from north to south, employing five years in the work.
Finally, Digance undertook the search, and died this
year. To these men we owe grand discoveries beyond
counting. To name but the grandest, Arnold found
Cattleya Percevaliana; from Colombia were brought
Odont. vex.
rubellum, Bollea coelestis,
Pescatorea Klabochorum; Smith sent Cattleya
O’Brieniana; Clarke the dwarf Cattleyas,
pumila and praestans; Lawrenceson Cattleya
Schroederae; Chesterton Cattleya Sanderiana;
Digance Cattleya Diganceana, which received
a Botanical certificate from the Royal Horticultural
Society on September 8th, 1890. But they heard
not a whisper of the lost orchid.
In 1889 a collector employed by M. Moreau, of Paris,
to explore Central and North Brazil in search of insects,
sent home fifty plants—for M. Moreau is
an enthusiast in orchidology also. He had no object
in keeping the secret of its habitat, and when Mr.
Sander, chancing to call, recognized the treasure
so long lost, he gave every assistance. Meanwhile,
the International Horticultural Society of Brussels
had secured a quantity, but they regarded it as new,
and gave it the name of Catt. Warocqueana;
in which error they persisted until Messrs. Sander
flooded the market.
My articles brought upon me a flood of questions almost
as embarrassing as flattering to a busy journalist.
The burden of them was curiously like. Three
ladies or gentlemen in four wrote thus: “I
love orchids. I had not the least suspicion that
they may be cultivated so easily and so cheaply.
I am going to begin. Will you please inform me”—here
diversity set in with a vengeance! From temperature
to flower-pots, from the selection of species to the
selection of peat, from the architecture of a greenhouse
to the capabilities of window-gardening, with excursions
between, my advice was solicited. I replied as
best I could. It must be feared, however, that
the most careful questioning and the most elaborate
replies by post will not furnish that ground-work of
knowledge, the ABC of the science, which is needed
by a person utterly unskilled; nor will he find it
readily in the hand-books. Written by men familiar
with the alphabet of orchidology from their youth up,
though they seem to begin at the beginning, ignorant
enthusiasts who study them find woeful gaps.
It is little I can do in this matter; yet, believing
that the culture of these plants will be as general
shortly as the culture of pelargoniums under glass—and
firmly convinced that he who hastens that day is a
real benefactor to his kind—I am most anxious
to do what lies in my power. Considering the
means by which this end may be won, it appears necessary
