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Now and then little troops of birds of many kinds passed wood-hewers, ant-thrushes, tanagers, flycatchers; as in the spring and fall similar troops of warblers, chickadees, and nuthatches pass through our northern woods. On the rocks and on the great trees by the river grew beautiful white and lilac orchids, the sobralia, of sweet and delicate fragrance.
I imagine that for stateliness and delicacy combined there are no plants that excel the Sobralia. At any single point they may be surpassed among orchids, be it understood, by nothing else in Nature's realm but their magnificence and grace together cannot be outshone. I must not dwell upon the marvels here, in front, on either side, and above a hint is enough.
Many orchids of the largest size are planted out here Cypripedium, Cattleya, Sobralia, Phajus, Loelia, Zygopetalum, and a hundred more, "specimens," as the phrase runs that is to say, they have ten, twenty, fifty, flower spikes. I attempt no more descriptions; to one who knows, the plain statement of fact is enough, one who does not is unable to conceive that sight by the aid of words.
Here, on the mountain slopes, Mr. Wallace found Bletia Sherrattiana, the white form, very rare; another terrestrial orchid, unnamed and, as is thought, unknown, which sends up a branching spike two feet to three feet high, bearing ten to twelve flowers, of rich purple hue, in shape like a Sobralia, three and four inches across; and yet another of the same family, growing on the rocks, and "looking like masses of snow on the hill-side."
Lawrenceana, and got only about 1500 or so, it growing only here and there. At Roraima we did not hunt at all, as the district is utterly rubbed out by the Indians. We were about fourteen days at Roraima and got plenty of Utricularia Campbelliana, U. Humboldtii, and U. montana. Also Zygopetalum, Cyp. Also plenty others, as Sobralia, Liliastrum, etc.
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