About Orchids: A Chat. Frederick Boyle

      FOOTNOTES:

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      [1] It is not inappropriate to record that when these articles were published in the St. James' Gazette, the editor received several communications warning him that his contributor was abusing his good faith—to put it in the mild French phrase. Happily, my friend was able to reply that he could personally vouch for the statements.

AN ORCHID SALE.

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      Shortly after noon on a sale day, the habitual customers of Messrs. Protheroe and Morris begin to assemble in Cheapside. On tables of roughest plank round the auction-rooms there, are neatly ranged the various lots; bulbs and sticks of every shape, big and little, withered or green, dull or shining, with a brown leaf here and there, or a mass of roots dry as last year's bracken. No promise do they suggest of the brilliant colours and strange forms buried in embryo within their uncouth bulk. On a cross table stand some dozens of "established" plants in pots and baskets, which the owners would like to part with. Their growths of this year are verdant, but the old bulbs look almost as sapless as those new arrivals. Very few are in flower just now—July and August are a time of pause betwixt the glories of the Spring and the milder effulgence of Autumn. 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. All our interest concentrates in the unlovely things along the wall.

      The habitual attendants at an auction-room are always somewhat of a family party, but, as a rule, an ugly one. It is quite different with the regular group of orchid-buyers. No black sheep there. A dispute is the rarest of events, and when it happens everybody takes for granted that the cause is a misunderstanding. The professional growers are men of wealth, the amateurs men of standing at least. All know each other, and a cheerful familiarity rules. We have a duke in person frequently, who compares notes and asks a hint from the authorities around; some clergymen; gentry of every rank; the recognized agents of great cultivators, and, of course, the representatives of the large trading firms. So narrow even yet is the circle of orchidaceans that almost all the faces at a sale are recognized, and if one wish to learn the names, somebody present can nearly always supply them. There is reason to hope that this will not be the case much longer. As the mysteries and superstitions environing the orchid are dispersed, our small and select throng of buyers will be swamped, no doubt; and if a certain pleasing feature of the business be lost, all who love the flower and their fellow-men alike will cheerfully submit.

      The talk is of orchids mostly, as these gentlemen stroll along the tables, lifting a root and scrutinizing it with practised glance that measures its vital strength in a second. But nurserymen take advantage of the gathering to show any curious or striking flower they chance to have at the moment. Mr. Bull's representative goes round, showing to one and another the contents of a little box—a lovely bloom of Aristolochia elegans, figured in dark red on white ground like a sublime cretonne—and a new variety of Impatiens; he distributes the latter presently, and gentlemen adorn their coats with the pale crimson flower.

      Excitement does not often run so high as in the times, which most of those present can recall, when orchids common now were treasured by millionaires. Steam, and the commercial enterprise it fosters, have so multiplied our stocks, that shillings—or pence, often enough—represent the guineas of twenty years back. There are many here, scarcely yet grey, who could describe the scene when Masdevallia Tovarensis first covered the stages of an auction-room. Its dainty white flowers had been known for several years. A resident in the German colony at Tovar, New Granada, sent one plant to a friend at Manchester, by whom it was divided. Each fragment brought a great sum, and the purchasers repeated this operation as fast as their morsels grew. Thus a conventional price was established—one guinea per leaf. Importers were few in those days, and the number of Tovars in South America bewildered them. At length Messrs. Sander got on the track, and commissioned Mr. Arnold to solve the problem. Arnold was a man of great energy and warm temper. Legend reports that he threw up the undertaking once because a gun offered him was second-hand; his prudence was vindicated afterwards by the misfortune of a confrère, poor Berggren, whose second-hand gun, presented by a Belgian employer, burst at a critical moment and crippled him for life. At the very moment of starting, Arnold had trouble with the railway officials. He was taking a quantity of Sphagnum moss in which to wrap the precious things, and they refused to let him carry it by passenger train. The station-master at Waterloo had never felt the atmosphere so warm, they say. In brief, this was a man who stood no nonsense.

      A young fellow-passenger showed much sympathy while the row went on, and Arnold learned with pleasure that he also was bound for Caraccas. This young man, whose name it is not worth while to cite, presented himself as agent for a manufacturer of Birmingham goods. There was no need for secrecy with a person of that sort. He questioned Arnold about orchids with a blank but engaging ignorance of the subject, and before the voyage was over he had learned all his friend's hopes and projects. But the deception could not be maintained at Caraccas. There Arnold discovered that the hardware agent was a collector and grower of orchids sufficiently well known. He said nothing, suffered his rival to start, overtook him at a village where the man was taking supper, marched in, barred the door, sat down opposite, put a revolver on the table, and invited him to draw. It should be a fair fight, said Arnold, but one of the pair must die. So convinced was the traitor of his earnestness—with good reason, too, as Arnold's acquaintances declare—that he slipped under the table, and discussed terms of abject surrender from that retreat. So, in due time, Messrs. Sander received more than forty thousand plants of Masdevallia Tovarensis—sent them direct to the auction-room—and drove down the price in one month from a guinea a leaf to the fraction of a shilling.

      Other great sales might be recalled, as that of Phalœnopsis Sanderiana and Vanda Sanderiana, when a sum as yet unparalleled was taken in the room; Cypripedium Spicerianum, Cyp. Curtisii, Lœlia anceps alba. Rarely now are we thrilled by sensations like these. But 1891 brought two of the old-fashioned sort, the reappearance of Cattleya labiata autumnalis and the public sale of Dendrobium phalœnopsis Schroderianum. The former event deserves a special article, "The Lost Orchid;" but the latter also was most interesting. Messrs. Sander are the heroes of both. Dendrobium ph. Schroederianum was not quite a novelty. The authorities of Kew obtained two plants from an island in Australasia a good many years ago. They presented a piece to Mr. Lee of Leatherhead, and another to Baron Schroeder; when Mr. Lee's grand collection was dispersed, the Baron bought his plant also, for £35, and thus possessed the only specimens in private hands. His name was given to the species.

      Under these conditions, the man lucky and enterprising enough to secure a few cases of the Dendrobium might look for a grand return. It seemed likely that New Guinea would prove to be its chief habitat, and thither Mr. Micholitz was despatched. He found it without difficulty, and collected a great number of plants. But then troubles began. The vessel which took them aboard caught fire in port, and poor Micholitz escaped with bare life. He telegraphed the disastrous news, "Ship