A STORY OF CATTLEYA MOSSIAE 



Since orchids never die, unless by accident, and never cease 

 to grow, there is no limit to the bulk they may attain. 

 Mishap alone cuts their lives short — commonly the fall or 

 the burning of the tree to which they cling. Mr, Burbidge 

 secured one, a Grammatophyllum, ' as big as a Pickford's 

 van,' which a corvee of Dyaks could not lift. Some old 

 collections even in Europe show prodigious monsters ; in 

 especial, I am told, that of the Duke of Northumberland at 

 Alnwick. Mr. Astor has two Peristeria elata at Cliveden of 

 which the bulbs are as large as an ostrich egg, and the 

 flower stems rise to a height of nine feet ! The most 

 striking instance of the sort I myself have observed, if not 

 quite the biggest, was a Cattleya Mossiae sent home by Mr. 

 Arnold. It enclosed two great branches of a tree, rising 

 from the fork below which it was sawn off — a bristling mass 

 four feet thick and five feet high ; two feet more must be 

 added if we reckon the leaves. As for the number of 

 flower-scapes it bore last season, to count them would have 

 been the work of hours ; roughly I estimated a thousand, 

 bearing not less than three blooms, each six inches across. 

 Fancy cannot rise to the conception of that gorgeous display, 

 I doubt not that the forest would be scented for a hundred 

 yards round. 



Such giant Cattleyas are very rare in the ' wild state.' 

 An orchid, though immortal, is subject to so many accidents 



