WARM ORCHIDS. 113 
hands since their establishment, twenty or thirty 
or forty years ago, have grown continually bigger 
and finer, it seems much more probable that our 
ignorance is to blame for the loss of those species 
which suddenly collapse. Sir Trevor Lawrence 
observed the other day: “With regard to the 
longevity of orchids, I have one which I know to 
have been in this country for more than fifty years, 
probably even twenty years longer than that— 
Renanthera coccinea.” The finest specimens of 
Cattleya in Mr. Stevenson Clarke’s houses have 
been “grown on” from small pieces imported 
twenty years ago. If there were more collections 
which could boast, say, half a century of uninter- 
rupted attention, we should have material for 
forming a judgment; as a rule, the dates of 
purchase or establishment were not carefully pre- 
served till late years. 
But there is one species of Cattleya which must 
needs have seventy years of existence in Europe, 
since it had never been re-discovered till 1890. 
When we see a pot of C. labiata, the true, autumn- 
flowering variety, more than two years old, we know 
that the very plant itself must have been established 
about 1818, or at least its immediate parent—for 
no seedling has been raised to public knowledge.’ 
1 Vide “ The Lost Orchid,” zzfra, p. 173. 
I 
