CALANTHE HOUSE 



For my own part I rank Calanthes among the most 

 charming of flowers, and in the abstract most people agree 

 with me perhaps. Yet they are contemned — the natural 

 species — by all professed orchidists ; and even hybrids mostly 

 will be found in holes and corners, where no one is invited to 

 pause and look at them. There are grand exceptions cer- 

 tainly. In Baron Schroder's wondrous collection, the hybrid 

 Calanthes hold a most honourable place. I have seen them 

 in bloom there filling a big house, more like flowering shrubs 

 than orchids — a blaze and a mass of colour almost startling. 

 But these are unique, raised with the utmost care from the 

 largest and rarest and most brilliant varieties which money 

 unlimited could discover. The species used for hybridising 

 were, as I understand, Cal. vestita oculata gigantea with 

 Cal. Regnieri, Sanderiana, and igneo-oculata — but picked 

 examples, as has been said. 



Here we have, among others, Sandhurstiana, offspring of 

 Limatodes rosea x Cal. vest, rubro-oculata. The individual 

 flowers are large, and a spike may bear as many as forty ; 

 brightest crimson, with a large yellow ' eye ' upon the lip. 

 No mortal contemns this. 



Bella (Veitchii x Turneri). — Sepals white, petals daintily 

 flushed ; lip somewhat more deeply flushed, with a white 

 patch upon the disc, and in this a broad spot of the deepest 

 but liveliest crimson. 



K 



