206 MY LIFE 



purple, and yellow Himalayan poppies, the curious PcripJoca 

 :, which produced masses of its strange blossoms, the 

 beautiful Akebia quinata with its wire-coloured flowers, a very 

 large Solatium crispus, and the strange Chilian climber, 

 Mutisia decurrens, which we called the 4i glory dandelion," 

 from its very large stellate flowers of intense orange. Even 

 Sir Thomas I (anbury, who paid me a visit here, had not 

 before seen this plant in flower. An unusually clear blue 

 hydrangea on a shady bank was also one of the glories of my 

 Parkstone garden. 



As already stated, from my very schoolboy days and my 

 early youth orchids had a fascination for me from the strange- 

 ness of their growth and habits and their fantastic and beauti- 

 ful flowers. In the parts of the tropics I visited they were 

 comparatively few in number, while their limited flowering 

 period made the finding of any of the more showy species in 

 flower a rare event. It was only after my return home that 

 at flower shows, and especially at Mr. William Bull's annual 

 exhibition of orchids at Chelsea, I became really acquainted 

 with their inexhaustible variety, extreme interest and marvel- 

 lous beauty. There w 7 as no exhibition in London that was at 

 once so enjoyable and satisfying as these orchid shows, which I 

 generally managed to visit every year. 



Being, as I thought, settled for life at Parkstone, I deter- 

 mined at last that I would try and grow some orchids myself, 

 and accordingly built a small house in three divisions so as to 

 get different temperatures, and for about four or five years 

 persevered in the attempt, with a great deal of labour and 

 enjoyment to myself, though with only a limited amount of 

 success. As I was always longing for new species, I did not 

 content myself with a few of the most showy and most easily 

 managed, but endeavoured to get examples of almost all the 

 chief forms. Some I bought at sales, a few from dealers, and 

 I had a nice lot of Jamaica orchids sent me by Mr. W. 

 Fawcett, among which was the handsome Broughtonia san- 

 guined, which flowered for several years. I also received a 

 large case of fine Indian orchids from the Botanic Gardens 

 at Calcutta. At last I got together more than a hundred 



