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Updated: May 17, 2025
It flowered within three years of fertilizing. As a genus, perhaps, Dendrobiums are readiest to show. Plants have actually been "pricked out" within two months of sowing, and they have bloomed within the fourth year. Phajus and Calanthe rank next for rapid development. Masdevallia, Chysis, and Cypripedium require four to five years, Lycaste seven to eight, Loelia and Cattleya ten to twelve.
But a reasonable man may content himself with the great classes of Odontoglossum, Oncidium, Cypripedium, and Lycaste; among the varieties of these, which no one has ventured to calculate perhaps, he may spend a happy existence. They have every charm foliage always green, a graceful habit, flowers that rank among the master works of Nature.
There is yet another virtue of the Lycaste which appeals to the expert. It lends itself readily to hybridization. This most fascinating pursuit attracts few amateurs as yet, and the professionals have little time or inclination for experiments. They naturally prefer to make such crosses as are almost certain to pay.
Lycaste also is a genus peculiar to America, such a favourite among those who know its merits that the species L. Skinneri is called the "Drawing-Room Flower." Professor Reichenbach observes in his superb volume that many people utterly ignorant of orchids grow this plant in their miscellaneous collection.
I speak of it without prejudice, for to my mind the bloom is stiff, heavy, and poor in colour. But there are tremendous exceptions. In the first place, Lycaste Skinneri alba, the pure white variety, beggars all description. Its great flower seems to be sculptured in the snowiest of transparent marble.
The sixth house is cool again Odontoglossums and such; the seventh is given to Dendrobes. But facing us as we enter stands a Lycaste Skinneri, which illustrates in a manner almost startling the infinite variety of the orchid. I positively dislike this species, obtrusive, pretentious, vague in colour, and stiff in form.
Lycastes are found in the woods, of Guatemala especially, and I have heard no such adventures in the gathering of them as attend Odontoglossums. Easily obtained, easily transported, and remarkably easy to grow, of course they are cheap. A man must really "give his mind to it" to kill a Lycaste. This counts for much, no doubt, in the popularity of the genus, but it has plenty of other virtues.
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