STORY OF SOBRALIA KIENASTIANA 



There are startling flowers of divers sort. Some astonish 

 by mere size, as Rafflesia Arnoldii, which is a yard across 

 and weighs fifteen to twenty pounds, or Amorphophallus 

 Titanum, eight feet high and fifteen inches thick. The 

 stench of these is not less impressive than their bulk ; an 

 artist who insisted upon sketching the latter at Kew fainted 

 over her work. But many of the giants are beautiful, as the 

 Aristolochias, like a bag of silk cretonne with mouth of 

 velvet, wherein a lady might stow her equipment for an in- 

 formal dance — shoes, gloves, fan, handkerchief, scarf, and, 

 if need be, a bouquet ; Bomarias, the Peruvian wonder, 

 trailing a scarlet tassel three feet long and thick in propor- 

 tion. Others are surprising without qualification, like 

 Nepenthes, which dangle a water-jug at the tip of every 

 leaf. But among orchids alone you see flowers of familiar 

 shape and ordinary class, which startle you by the mere 

 perfection of their beauty. One of these is Sobralia 

 Kienastiana. My first sight of it at the Temple Show is not 

 to be forgotten. I had been thrilling and raving over a 

 specimen of Cattleya intermedia Parthenia, ' chaste as ice 

 and pure as snow,' when, turning to Baron Schroder's 

 exhibit, I beheld this glory of Nature. It has all the ad- 

 vantage of ' setting ' denied to so many among the loveliest 

 of its fellows. That divine Parthenia must be regarded 

 alone. It has no charm of environment. But the Sobralia 



