LAELIA JONGHEANA 



The back wall carries a broad sloping ledge of tufa, where 

 little chips of Odontoglossum and the rest are planted out to 

 grow until they become large enough to be potted — no long 

 time, for they gather strength fast in niches of the porous 

 stone. Along the top, however, are ranged flowering plants 

 of Odontoglossum grande which make a blaze in their season 

 — three to six blooms upon a spike, the smallest of them four 

 inches across. Overhead is a long row of Laelia Jongheana 

 — some three hundred of them here and elsewhere. It is a 

 species with a history, and I venture to transcribe the 

 account which I published in the Pall Mall Gazette^ ]u\y 

 i8, 1899. 



' A Sensation for the Elect. — The general public will 

 hear without emotion that Laelia Jongheana has been redis- 

 covered. The name is vaguely suggestive of orchids — things 

 delightful in a show, or indeed elsewhere, when in bloom, but 

 not exhilarating to read about. Therefore I call the news a 

 sensation for the elect. At the present moment, I believe, 

 only one plant of L. Jongheana is established in this country, 

 among Baron Schroder's wonders. Though its history is 

 lost this must be a lonely survivor of those which reached 

 Europe in 1855 — a generation and a half ago. It is not to 

 be alleged that no civilised mortal has beheld the precious 

 weed in its native forests since that date ; but no one has 

 mentioned the spectacle, and assuredly no one has troubled 



