OcTOBER, 1922.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 299 
of an enormous number of collectors who formerly could not contemplate 
their purchase. I knew one collector who simply longed to own a fine 
crispum. He hada chance one day at £30 for a plant in bloom. While 
he was considering some one offered £40 and eclipsed. him, and _ before the 
bloom was cut £80 had been paid for the plant. Afterwards, when the 
plant had been propagated, he bought a piece at £50, and fearing to hold 
such an expensive plant he put it up by auction the following year when in 
bloom and obtained £126. He did well even by losing the original plant, 
but would have done better had he not considered at first. 
To recount allthe crispum stories I know would fill a book of bulky 
proportions, but these few notes on their boom will tell the collector of 
recent date what exciting days those were in the end of the nineteenth 
and beginning of the present century. To-day, owing to everyone being 
able to own blotched crispums, there is a steady gradual return to the 
unspotted varieties, of which we had thousands during the period of 1880 to 
1895. Scores of these fine ones were killed by lack of skill, and not cutting 
the spikes soon enough; also by non-propagation, for cutting a plant made 
many shudder and think it would kill it instantly, but a few of us began 
cutting off the leading bulbs, instead of the worn out and oldest one, which 
often died, for we kept them in wet moss, too wet, then, and killed them.. 
Ultimately, we revolutionised the art of propagating Odontoglossums. 
(To be continued.) 
CYPRIPEDIUM CURTISII. 
HEN, in 1878, Messrs. Veitch decided to send a plant collector to the 
East, Charles Cuttis, who had been in their employ some four years 
at Chelsea, was selected to undertake the journey. The first trip was to 
Mauritius and Madagascar, where he collected various tropical plants. He 
returned to England in 1879, and the following year was sent to Malaysia, 
Where he explored Borneo, Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas. His special 
object, and one in which he was successful, was to collect specimens of 
Nepenthes Northiana. Curtis was accompanied on his trip to Borneo by 
the young gardener, David Burke, who returned with the plants found in 
Sarawak, these including a large quantity of Cypripedium Stonel, C. Lowi, 
and many Vandas. After seeing Burke and the collection safely na at 
Singapore, Curtis proceeded to Dutch Borneo in order to collect Phale- 
hopsis violacea, which, although known in England, was still very rare, 
He was successful in obtaining the plants, but owing to an accident with a 
boat, a month’s collections and all his clothes and instruments were lost, 
and he narrowly escaped with his life. 
Among the discoveries of Curtis was the handsome Cypripedium to 
