1 58 



Till-: CI IDE T( ) XATL'RE 



CVPRIPEDIUM BELLATULUM. 



A strikingly handsome species of "lady's slipper' 

 the East. The flowers are white with 

 numerous dark spots. 



from 



a tree-fern growing in the fissures of the rock, 

 its large fronds overhanging the whole. There 

 were also large tree-ferns with straight stems 

 twenty and twenty-five feet high with fronds 

 sometimes touching the ground, and forming 

 huge and graceful, umbrella-like arbors. 



^ ^ ^ '■%■ 



"Returning to my fifty cases of Cattleya 

 Triahae, I found the greatest difficulty in mov- 

 ing them, the cases being too bulky to pass 

 through the narrow places of the road, which 

 years and the elements had worn down in 

 some places to a depth of several feet with a 

 width of two and three feet. The only way 

 left was to build rafts and to float down from 

 the nearest river. The wet season had just 

 set in and several streams which during the 

 dry spell were very small indeed were now full 

 of water but very dangerous on account of 

 large rocks, overhanging branches, stumps of 

 trees and a number of other obstacles. I had 

 to build no less than six rafts about thirty-six 

 inches wide to accommodate six boxes in 

 single file with room at each end for one man 

 to manage or steer the raft in its perilous 

 flight. I had many narrow escapes but after 

 I reached Rio Cucuana the current was less 

 violent, and thence we floated into the Sal- 

 dana, a river of large proportions. Here I 

 tied the six rafts together to make one, and 

 this floated into Rio Magdalena and finally to 

 Honda, where the plants were embarked on a 

 river steamer which carried them down the 



lower Magdalena for six hundred miles to 

 Barranquilla on the coast. 



"I spent five years of continuous travelling 

 from one part of the country to another, on 

 foot, or on horseback, and muleback, and in 

 canoes <>r rafts on streams or rivers. When 

 going out to these regions to gather a certain 

 species and possibly knowing more or less of 

 the lncality in which it may be found, to 

 gather a lot of plants and return home are 

 merely child's play compared with the moving 

 from one end of the country to another and 

 the looking for anything and everything of 

 interest: but such a hard schooling has its re- 

 ward inasmuch as when the labors are at an 

 end a thorough knowledge of the country and 

 of its flora is still left as a good and reliable 

 asset. 



CVPRIPEDIUM LAWRENCEANUM. 



A striking "lady's slipper" orchid from Borneo. The 



large, showy flowers, one or two to each stem, 



are white striped with numerous 



purplish lines. 



