124 ABOUT ORCHIDS. 
gets irritated in these days when he findsa plant 
beyond his skill. Itis a pity, for the Schomburg- 
kias are glorious things—in especial Sch. tibicinzs. 
No description has done it justice, and few are 
privileged to speak as eye-witnesses. The cluster- 
ing flowers hang down, sepals and petals of dusky 
mauve, most gracefully frilled and twisted, en- 
circling a great hollow labellum which ends in a 
golden drop. That part of the cavity which is 
visible between the handsome incurved wings has 
bold stripes of dark crimson. The species is 
interesting, too. It comes from Honduras, where 
the children use its great hollow pseudo-bulbs as 
trumpets—whence the name. At their base isa 
hole—a touch-hole, as we may say, the utility of 
which defies our botanists. Had Mr. Belt travelled 
in those parts, he might have discovered the secret, 
as in the similar case of the Bullthorn, one of the 
Gummifere. The great thorns of that bush 
have just such a hole, and Mr. Belt proved by 
lengthy observations that it is designed, to speak 
roughly, for the ingress of an ant peculiar to that 
acacia, whose duty it is to defend the young 
shoots—vide Belt’s “Naturalist in Nicaragua,” 
page 218. Importers are too well aware that 
Schomburgkia tibicints also is inhabited by an 
ant of singular ferocity, for it survives the voyage, 
