ORCHIDS 



out-of-the-way forest-clad range of Burma, Celebes, South 

 America, or Madagascar, these orchids are dried, put up in 

 crates and packed off to London, where they are carefully 

 cultivated in hot-houses and persuaded to flower. They 

 may be worth sixpence or they may be worth £500 each, 

 but no one can tell until they have flowered in London. 



But the romance of the orchid-hunter is not exactly what 

 we have to describe here. It is rather the romance of the 

 life of the orchid itself. 



It is perched high up on the branches of the tallest trees 

 in the forest, exposed to sun, exposed to wind, and quite 

 unable to gather either salts or rain from the soil. How, 

 then, does it manage to live ? 



These orchids, it must be remembered, are only found in 

 out-of-the-way and feverish, unhealthy places, where the 

 aboriginal savages still lurk and endure a dreadful existence 

 of hunger and starvation in dense tropical forests. 



Now the word " dense "" explains the whole story. Those 

 forests are so thick, so full of giant trees and exuberant 

 growth, that civilized man even to-day in 1906 can make 

 nothing of them, and leaves them to the savage. The 

 reason why vegetation is so luxuriant is simply that there 

 are both plentiful moisture and a hot, tropical sun. That 

 makes the life of the orchid possible, and also ensures 

 malaria for the hunter. 



It hangs out into the moist air long pendulous roots 

 which act as so many sponges absorbing and soaking in 

 moisture. The tremendous energy of growth covers bark 

 and branches with creeping plants innumerable, with a pro- 

 fusion of moss, liverworts, and ferns such as we cannot 

 imagine from our own experiences in this country. So the 

 roots of our orchid find on the branches rich leaf-mould, 



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