348 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTTTTTTTON, 191:5. 



Equator it is necessary only to ascend the slopes of a mountain to see 

 the climate change. The mountain sjDecies of warm regions should 

 not be treated like essentially tropical plants that are accustomed ex- 

 clusively to elevated temperatures. There are plenty of orchids, and 

 not the least beautiful ones, which grow in the neighborhood of snow 

 in regions where the thermometer falls to zero. The explorations of 

 Skinner in the cordilleras of Guatemala ; of Gibson in India, notably 

 on Khasia Hill; of Gardner in the Organ Mountains of Brazil; of 

 William Lobb in the Peruvian Andes ; of Mottley in the mountains of 

 Java, gave information almost simultaneously, about 1835. of the 

 wonderful flowers which bloom at high altitudes. From this same 

 year dates an important discovery by Joseph Cooper, the skilled 

 gardener of the Earl of Fitzwilliam. According to him orchids had 

 often been cultivated at too high a temperature, and the mistake had 

 been made, from fear of cold, of keeping them in air-tight houses; 

 thus frequently they had been suffocated, for in the confined atmos- 

 phere, charged with carbon dioxide, life became very difficult, and it 

 was indeed remarkable that failures had not been more frequent. 

 The methods of cultivation recommended by Cooper tended grad- 

 ually to classify greenhouses in three categories, according to the 

 temperature maintained in them — hothouses, temperate houses, and 

 cold houses. The last are to-day graced with plants of the first rank, 

 among which must be mentioned first the Odontoglossmns, which rival 

 Cattleyas in the beauty of their flowers. It was not until 1863 that 

 the most remarkable species of the genus, O dontoglosswm cHspwn. 

 was introduced. This plant was sent simultaneously by three col- 

 lectors who were ardent explorers of the same regions of America — 

 Weir, Blunt, and Schlim — who traveled separately, the first for the 

 London Horticultural Society, the second for the English horticul- 

 turist, Hugo Low, and the third for the Maison Linden, of Belgium. 

 This " steeplechase " for the introduction of an orchid shows that in 

 Europe there was a violent attempt made and a considerable expendi- 

 ture of effort upon all sides to add a marvel more to the greenhouses. 

 One may conceive from the account of such exertions that the 

 growing of orchids had received a great impulse. All the great 

 commercial houses at once employed explorers to search the less 

 known and least accessible countries for all the rare species, and by 

 thousands the orchids began to flow into Europe. Travelers profited 

 by the dormant period of the plants during the dry season to remove 

 the epiphytes from their supports and ship them in cases, as if they 

 were dry or dead objects. The traffic thus inaugurated at the begin- 

 ning of the nineteenth century has been continued to the present 

 time, and to indicate its importance I need cite only a single figure, 

 which is sufficiently eloquent and significant: There are large horti- 



