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Updated: June 17, 2025
Cattleya guttata Leopoldi grows upon rocks in the little island of Sta. Catarina, Brazil, in company with Loelia elegans and L. purpurata. There the four dwelt in such numbers only twenty years ago that the supply was thought inexhaustible. It has come to an end already, and collectors no longer visit the spot.
Curious it is to note how science has returned in this latter day to the views of a pre-scientific era. Professor Reichenbach was only restrained from abolishing the genus Cattleya, and merging all its species into Epidendrum, by regard for the weakness of human nature. Cattleya labiata vera was sent from Brazil to Dr. Lindley by Mr. W. Swainson, and reached Liverpool in 1818.
He who glances at the endless tricks, methods, and contrivances devised by one or other species to serve its turn may well come to fancy that orchids are reasoning things. At least, many keep the record of their history in form unmistakable. Here is a Cattleya which I purchased last autumn, suspecting it to be rare and valuable, though nameless; I paid rather less than one shilling.
At some age, no doubt, circulation fails altogether in those old limbs, but experience does not tell me distinctly as yet in how long time the worn-out bulbs of an Oncidium or a Cattleya, for example, would perish by natural death.
I only wish to demonstrate, for the service of very small amateurs like myself, that costliness at least is no obstacle if they have a fancy for this culture: unless, of course, they demand wonders and "specimens." That Cattleya Mossiæ, was my first orchid, bought in 1884.
Sander's life. The plants bore many dry specimens of last year's inflorescence, displaying such extraordinary size as proved the variety to be new; and there is no large Cattleya of indifferent colouring. To receive a plant of that character unannounced, undescribed, is an experience without parallel for half a century. Mr. Mau was sent back by next mail to secure every fragment he could find.
If there were more collections which could boast, say, half a century of uninterrupted attention, we should have material for forming a judgment; as a rule, the dates of purchase or establishment were not carefully preserved till late years. But there is one species of Cattleya which must needs have seventy years of existence in Europe, since it had never been re-discovered till 1890.
Mr. Burbidge suggested at the Orchid Conference that gentlemen who have plantations in a country suitable should establish a "farm," or rather a market-garden, and grow the precious things for exportation. It is an excellent idea, and when tea, coffee, sugar-cane, all the regular crops of the East and West Indies, are so depreciated by competition, one would think that some planters might adopt it. Perhaps some have; it is too early yet for results. Upon inquiry I hear of a case, but it is not encouraging. One of Mr. Sander's collectors, marrying when on service in the United States of Colombia, resolved to follow Mr. Burbidge's advice. He set up his "farm" and began "hybridizing" freely. No man living is better qualified as a collector, for the hero of this little tale is Mr. Kerbach, a name familiar among those who take interest in such matters; but I am not aware that he had any experience in growing orchids. To start with hybridizing seems very ambitious too much of a short cut to fortune. However, in less than eighteen months Mr. Kerbach found it did not answer, for reasons unexplained, and he begged to be reinstated in Mr. Sander's service. It is clear, indeed, that the orchid-farmer of the future, in whose success I firmly believe, will be wise to begin modestly, cultivating the species he finds in his neighbourhood. It is not in our greenhouses alone that these plants sometimes show likes and dislikes beyond explanation. For example, many gentlemen in Costa Rica a wealthy land, and comparatively civilized have tried to cultivate the glorious Cattleya Dowiana. For business purposes also the attempt has been made. But never with success. In those tropical lands a variation of climate or circumstances, small perhaps, but such as plants that subsist mostly upon air can recognize, will be found in a very narrow circuit. We say that Trichopilias have their home at Bogota. As a matter of fact, however, they will not live in the immediate vicinity of that town, though the woods, fifteen miles away, are stocked with them. The orchid-farmer will have to begin cautiously, propagating what he finds at hand, and he must not be hasty in sending his crop to market. It is a general rule of experience that plants brought from the forest and "established" before shipment do less well than those shipped direct in good condition, though the public, naturally, is slow to admit a conclusion opposed by
No plant has ever been found in the forest, we understand. It is just the same case with Loelia anceps alba. The genus Loelia is distinguished from Cattleya by a peculiarity to be remarked only in dissection; its pollen masses are eight as against four. To my taste, however, the species are more charming on the whole. There is L. purpurata.
Gardner, travelling in pursuit of butterflies and birds, sent home quantities of a Cattleya which he found on the precipitous sides of the Pedro Bonita range, and also on the Gavea, which our sailors call "Topsail" Mountain, or "Lord Hood's Nose." These orchids passed as C. labiata for a while. Paxton congratulated himself and the world in his Flower Garden that the stock was so greatly increased.
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