ORCHIDS AND HYBRIDIZING. 241 
vallias owe that quality to their mountaineering 
habit, not to latitude. They live so near the 
equator that sunshine descends almost perpendicu- 
larly—and the sun shines for more than half the 
year. But in this happy isle of ours, upon the 
very brightest day of midsummer, its rays fall at 
an angle of 28°, declining constantly until, at mid- 
winter, they struggle through the fogs at an in- 
clination of 75°. The reader may work out this 
proportion for himself, but he must add to his 
reckoning the thickness of our atmosphere at its 
best, and the awful number of cloudy days. We 
cannot spare one particle of light. The ripening 
seed must stand close beneath the glass, and how- 
ever fierce the sunshine no blind may be interposed. 
It is likely that the mother-plant will be burnt up 
—quite certain that it will be much injured. 
This house is devoted to the hybridizing ot 
Cypripediums ; I choose that genus for our demon- 
stration, because, as has been said, it is so very 
easy and so certain that an intelligent girl mastered 
all its eccentricities of structure after a single lesson, 
which made her equally proficient in those of 
Dendrobes, Oncidiums, Odontoglots, Epiden- 
drums, and I know not how many more. The 
leaves are green and smooth as yet, with many a 
fantastic bloom, and many an ovary that has just 
R 
