ORCHIDS 233 



boughs and bare twigs burst into gorgeous 

 flowering in the hot Indian spring, till the jungle 

 glows like English beech and elm woods on a 

 clear autumn day. Then in the plains there 

 is the second flowering, the season of the rains, 

 when the rank green growth chokes all but the 

 tall grasses and ferns, and the lotus flowers with 

 their lovely curving leaves completely hide the 

 surface of the ponds. Creepers flourish in the 

 damp dripping forests, where the gnarled twisted 

 limbs of the old mangoes are fringed with sweet 

 scented orchid sprays, as if swarms of little mauve 

 and yellow butterflies were fluttering down to 

 settle in the shadows of the trees. But the 

 orchids of the Himalayan forests and Nilghiri hills, 

 in spite of their strange beauty of form and 

 colour, failed to win a place in the Indian garden. 

 Even that wonderful lily, the Gloriosa superba, 

 seems to have passed unnoticed, and the rose, 

 although a wild flower in the north-western 

 mountains, did not find its way into Hindu 

 parterres until after the Mohammedan conquest. 

 Amaranth and the tulsi, " Holy Basil," are 

 practically the only herbaceous flowers mentioned 

 in the old Indian stories and plays. 



The Hindu Arama was then a cool woodland 



