208 ABOUT ORCHIDS. 
get on to the ninth house, from which the tenth 
branches. 
Here is the stove, and twilight reigns over that 
portion where a variety of super-tropic genera are 
“plumping up,’ making roots, and generally re- 
conciling themselves to a new start in life. Such 
dainty, delicate souls may well object to the 
apprenticeship. It must seem very degrading to 
find themselves laid out upon a bed of cinders and 
moss, hung up by the heels above it, and even 
planted therein ; but if they have as much good 
sense as some believe, they may be aware that it is 
all for their good. At the end, in full sunshine, 
stands a little copse of Vanda teres, set as closely 
as their stiff branches will allow. Still we must 
gseton. There are bits of wood hanging here so 
rotten that they scarcely hold together ; faintest 
dots of green upon them assure the experienced 
that presently they will be draped with pendant 
leaves, and presently again, we hope, with blue and 
white and scarlet flowers of Utricularia. 
From the stove opens a very long, narrow house, 
where cool genera are “plumping,” laid out on 
moss and potsherds; many of them have burst 
into strong growth. Pleiones are flowering freely 
as they lie. This farmer’s crops come to harvest 
faster than he can attendtothem. Things beauti- 
