24 ABOUT ORCHIDS. 
AN ORCHID, SALE 
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 atrivals. 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. Dalhousia- 
num—are bursting into untimely bloom, betraying 
