STORY OF ONCIDIUM SPLENDIDUM 



We all know that to make a thing conspicuous above 

 measure is the most effective way of baffling those who seek 

 it. Wendell Holmes has expounded the natural law of this 

 phenomenon, and Edgar Foe exemplified it in a famous 

 story. I am about to give an instance from the life, as 

 striking as his fiction. 



Oncidium splendidum is one of the stateliest orchids we 

 have, and one of the showiest. Its leaves are very large, 

 fleshy and rigid, and the tall flower spike bears a number of 

 pale yellow blooms striped with brown, each three inches 

 across. There is no exaggeration in saying that they would 

 catch the most careless eye as far oif as one could see 

 them. 



At an uncertain date in the fifties a merchant captain — 

 whose name and that of his ship have never been recovered 

 — brought half a dozen specimens to St. Lazare and gave 

 them to his owner, M. Herman. This gentleman sold the 

 lot to MM. Thibaud and Ketteler, orchid-dealers of Sceaux. 

 They were tempted to divide plants so striking and so new ; 

 thus a number of small and weakly pieces were distributed 

 about Europe at a prodigious price. We have the record of 

 the sale of one at Stevens' Auction Rooms in 1870; it 

 could show but a single leaf, yet somebody paid thirty 

 guineas for the morsel. So ruthlessly were the plants cut 

 up. Even orchids, tenacious of life as they are, will not 



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