Orchids. 



CHAPTEE II. 



ORCHIDS OR AIR-PLANTS. 



IT is not to the caprices of amateurs alone that or- 

 chids owe their celebrity ; they justify the predilec- 

 tion with which they are regarded by their beauty 

 and their singularity, and even by the difficulties which 

 explorers have had to overcome in order to bring them 

 home from their intertropical forests, and by the care 

 and skill which horticulturists have had to employ in 

 acclimatizing them in northern climates. 



In first speaking of their beauty and their singu- 

 larity, we find that these remarkable plants have cer- 

 tain features utterly unlike those of all other plants. 

 They live as parasites, either on the bark of large 



