The Culture of Greenhouse Orchids 



advice will probably be unsound. I once heard a 

 great horticulturist mutter, when a distinguished 

 but unpractical personage was holding forth, "I 

 never want to hear what orchids do at home it 

 only puts me out ! " He referred, of course, to the 

 impressions which an unskilled traveller brings 

 home. 



Such observers, however intelligent, do not bear 

 in memory that the wild orchid has to make the 

 struggle for existence as best it can. The seed 

 grows where it chances to fall, unless, of course, the 

 situation be so unfavourable that it cannot live. 

 No mortal watches it ; no one cares whether it 

 thrive or perish. It may worry along for years, 

 never flowering, perhaps, just keeping life enough 

 to grow at the appointed time. We see daily 

 evidence of this. I once bought a mass of Lcelici 

 purpnrata, in which not a pseudo-bulb for ten years, 

 or perhaps twenty, had reached the height of four 

 inches. Then suddenly the conditions changed. 

 Seasons favourable to its peculiar situation occurred, 

 or it crept out of those unsuitable surroundings ; 

 forthwith the pseudo-bulbs lengthened, swelled, and 

 flowered. But generally, no doubt, in such cases 

 the orchid drags on a wretched existence, contend- 

 ing with adverse circumstances. Nevertheless, the 

 uninitiated traveller who sees it blooming, makes 



8 



