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It would be wrong to leave the impression that orchid culture is actually as facile as market gardening, but we may say that the eccentricities of Phaloenopsis and the rest have no more practical importance for the class I would persuade than have the terrors of the deep for a Thames water-man.
Four seasons had passed when I beheld the marvel, and it was a picture of health and strength, flowering freely; but the reader is not advised to introduce a few Phaloenopsis to his Odontoglossums not by any means. Mr. Williams himself never repeated the experiment. It was one of those delightfully perplexing vagaries which the orchid-grower notes from time to time.
The general conditions which it demands are fulfilled, commonly, in any stove where East Indian plants flourish; but from time to time we receive a vigorous hint that particular conditions, not always forthcoming, are exacted by Phaloenopsis. Many legends on this theme are current; I may cite two, notorious and easily verified.
The plain truth is that no class of plant can be cultivated so easily, as none are so certain to repay the trouble, as the Cool Orchids. Nearly all the genera of this enormous family have species which grow in a temperate climate, if not in the temperate zone. At this moment, in fact, I recall but two exceptions, Vanda and Phaloenopsis.
The expense of making this shipment a reader may judge from the hints given. The Royal Mail Company's charge for freight from Manzanilla is 750l. I could give an incident of the same class yet more startling with reference to Phaloenopsis.
And it dwells by the station of Culebras, on the Panama railway. Of genera, however, doubtless the Vandas are hottest; and among these, V. Sanderiana stands first. It was found in Mindanao, the most southerly of the Philippines, by Mr. Roebelin when he went thither in search of the red Phaloenopsis, as will be told presently.
The authorities at Kew determined to build a special house for the genus, provided with every comfort which experience or scientific knowledge could suggest. But when it was opened, six or eight years ago, not a Phaloenopsis of all the many varieties would grow in it; after vain efforts, Mr.
So the charming Masdevallia Tovarensis, warm, white and lowly, will take to itself the qualities, in combination, of Mas. bella, tall, cool, and highly coloured red and yellow, as Mr. Cookson has proved; so Phaloenopsis Wightii, delicate of growth and small of flower, will become strong and generous by union with Phal. grandiflora, without losing its dainty tones.
I have told the story of Phaloenopsis Sanderiana. It was a Zulu who put the discoverer of the new yellow Calla on the track. The blue Utricularia had been heard of and discredited long before it was found Utricularias are not orchids indeed, but only botanists regard the distinction.
Beyond this show-house lie the small structures devoted to "hybridization," but I deal with them in another chapter. Here also are the Phaloenopsis, the very hot Vandas, Bolleas, Pescatoreas, Anæctochili, and such dainty but capricious beauties.
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