•290 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IX ENGLAND. 



careful study of their habits, tried to discover the right treatment. 

 One of the earHest private orchid-houses was that of the Earl 

 FitzWilliam, at Wentworth Woodhouse, the genus Miltonia 

 being named in his honour. His gardener, Joseph Cooper, was 

 one of the first successful growers. In 1833 the orchid collection 

 at Chatsworth was begun. The Duke of Devonshire procured 

 plants from the East, and Paxton, who was his gardener at the 

 time, was enabled to cultivate many successfully, and publish 

 the interesting records in the Magazine of Botany, which he 

 edited. The orchid growers since then that have been successful, 

 are too numerous to mention. Such collections as that of Sir 

 Trevor Lawrence are one of the wonders of the nineteenth 

 century. 



The history of the introduction of many of these orchids 

 reads like an exciting adventure or fairy tale. The story of 

 the lost orchid Cattleya labiata vera is known to all orchid lovers. 

 The plant was originally sent home from Brazil to Dr. Lindley 

 by Mr. W. Swainson, as a packing round some lichens, in 1818,* 

 and Lindley described and named it in memory of Mr. Cattley, 

 a great horticulturalist. For years after other species were sent 

 home, which passed for the true labiata, until it was discovered 

 that the " vera " no longer existed in cultivation, and that its 

 native home was forgotten. For fifty years it was the aim of all 

 collectors to find this treasure again. By chance at last in 1889 

 some plants were sent home to M. Moreau, of Paris, from whom 

 Messrs. Sanders learnt its habitat, and sent off in search of it, 

 and soon all orchid growers were able to add the long-lost 

 treasure to their collections. Many fruitless voyages have been 

 made to procure these floral wonders, and frequently the collector 

 has at last met with them when least expected. One plant of 

 Cyprepedium Curtisi was sent home by Mr. Curtis from Penang 

 in 1882, and no more were forthcoming until collectors despaired 

 of ever finding it. At last, Ericsson, climbing a mountain in 

 Sumatra, took shelter in a little hut. On the walls he saw among 

 the names of the travellers who had rested there, a drawing of 

 the very flower he was in search of, and underneath was written 



* About Ofcliiih. By Frederick Dovle, 1893. 



