BUDS, BLOOM, AND EARLY BIRD 



charm in the writings of Maurice Maeterlinck. In Feb. 

 Flowers and Immortality that strange and subtle genius l5"2o 

 probes deeply into the mystery of the life and structure 

 of plants, and builds up on them a theory of life after 

 death that is not the less absorbing because coloured 

 with his singular and elusive fancy. 



The amateur gardener may not approach Orchids in 

 the attitude of one who seeks interest in complexity of 

 structure, or of those unsatisfied souls who fail to find 

 contentment in the religions of the majority. He may 

 admire them for their intrinsic beauty, leaving the rest 

 to the botanical student, the mystic, and the searcher 

 for divine revelation. They will richly reward him. 

 Any one of the four principal genera — Cattleya, Cypri- 

 pedium, Dendrobium, and Odontoglossum — will afford 

 him an abundant harvest of beautiful forms and colours. 

 He may be wise to deal first with these, passing to the 

 less important kinds — Angraecum, Laelia, Oncidium, 

 Vanda, and the like — subsequently. 



Considered collectively, Orchids are certainly a some- 

 what expensive class, but some of the best kinds are 

 cheap, and a few will thrive without much heat. They 

 are imported in large quantities in winter and spring, 

 and it is by no means a bad way of starting Orchid study 

 to visit the auction sales where these importations are 

 disposed of. The sales are advertised in the horti- 

 cultural journals. It is true that the amateur, whose 

 interest in Orchids has been aroused by seeing a col- 

 lection in bloom in a botanic garden, or at a show, or 

 in the garden of a friend, may feel nonplussed when 

 he sees the condition in which the importations are 

 sold. Some of them look as much like bundles of grey 

 faggots as anything. They bear only a very remote and 

 distressing resemblance to plants. But they have life 

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