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But they were growing among bones and skeletons, in the graveyard of the natives. Those people lay their dead in a slight coffin, which they place upon the rocks just above high tide, a situation which the Dendrobes love. Mr. Micholitz required all his tact and all his most attractive presents before he could persuade the Papuans to let him even approach. But brass wire proved irresistible.
There is not much danger or unpleasantness in unpacking Dendrobes, compared with other genera, but ship-rats spring out occasionally and give an ugly bite; scorpions and centipedes have been known to harbour in the close roots of D. Falconerii; stinging ants are by no means improbable, nor huge spiders; while cockroaches of giant size, which should be killed, may be looked for with certainty.
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.
Of D. phaloenopsis Schroederi I have spoken elsewhere. There is D. Goldiei; a variety of D. superbiens but much larger. There is D. Albertesii, snow-white; D. Broomfieldianum, curiously like Loelia anceps alba in its flower which is to say that it must be the loveliest of all Dendrobes. But this species has a further charm, almost incredible.
But Professor Reichenbach drily refused to consider personal questions; and really, seeing how short is life, and how long Dendrobium nobile Heathfield, &c., true philanthropists will hold him justified. We may expect wondrous Dendrobes from New Guinea. Some fine species have already arrived, and others have been sent in the dried inflorescence.
People hear of great sums paid for orchids, and they fancy that such represent only the extreme limits of an average. In fact, they have no relation whatsoever to the ordinary price. One of our largest general growers, who has but lately begun cultivating those plants, tells me that half-a-crown is the utmost he has paid for Cattleyas and Dendrobes, one shilling for Odontoglots and Oncidiums.
This house is devoted to the hybridizing of Cypripediums; I choose that genus for our demonstration, because, as has been said, it is so very easy and so certain that an intelligent girl mastered all its eccentricities of structure after a single lesson, which made her equally proficient in those of Dendrobes, Oncidiums, Odontoglots, Epidendrums, and I know not how many more.
But one natural hybrid has been identified among Dendrobes the progeny doubtless of D. crassinode × D. Wardianum. Messrs. J. Laing have a fine specimen of this; it shows the growth of the latter species with the bloom of the former, but enlarged and improved. Several other hybrid crosses are suspected. Of artificial we have not less than fifty.
In former chapters I have done my best to show that orchid culture is no mystery. The laws which govern it are strict and simple, easy to define in books, easily understood, and subject to few exceptions. It is not with Odontoglossums and Dendrobes as with roses an intelligent man or woman needs no long apprenticeship to master their treatment.
All went well this time, and in due course the tables were loaded with thousands of a plant which, before the consignment was announced, had been the special glory of a collection which is among the richest of the universe. There were two memorable items in this sale: the idol aforesaid and a skull to which one of the Dendrobes had attached itself.
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