eta ty 
& 
Othe Orchid Review 4 
A) v VoL. XXII. FEBRUARY, 1914. No. 254. 3 
eises| OUR NOTE BOOK. [Aras 
HE Press reporter—more power to him—has dropped in at another of 
our meetings. “Surely in all London on a January day,” he 
remarks, “there is no such place as the Royal Horticultural Hall. If such 
shows were held in London once in a generation the Hall would be filled 
with eager thousands, but because there are fifty in a year they are almost 
unnoticed.” [We hasten to assure him that we have not got to weekly 
meetings yet.—Ep.]. ‘‘ One stepped in to-day out of the cold, grey, friendless 
streets into a glow of colour, such as no artist could paint—into a hall where 
men are quiet and friendly—where social distinctions are forgotten. 
And at atime when London streets are empty of colour, when flowers are 
rare, there is nothing in this show at the Horticultural Hall more triumphant 
in pageantry than the Orchids. On the naked stems they hang like 
gorgeous butterflies, spotted and barred like the wild beasts of the jungle, 
amber and tawny, flaming and dusky, like the skies above the lagoon. 
They have no lovely perfume, these spoilt darlings of the hothouse, but 
for barbaric energy of shape and colour they are peerless.’ 
The occasion was the second meeting of the year; had it been a 
fortnight earlier he might have alluded to the wild beasts of the jungle in 
quite a different sense, for the Gardeners’ Magazine remarks: ‘In the 
annexe usually devoted to Orchids, the new stout wire arrangement for 
the protection of new Orchids caused some little amusement, because it 
seemed to have strayed from the Zoological Gardens.” The Garden also 
observes: ‘To the great astonishment and disappointment of visitors, the 
special Orchids cies had been judged for awards were placed behind an 
unsightly wire caging”; while the Journal of Horticulture has the following 
comment: “A metal screen, or grill, as it was called, was placed in front 
of the more valuable of the Orchids, the sequel to thieving of pollen some 
It. is a most disagreeable innovation to visitors, and 
months ago. 
who tried in -vain to decipher the inscription on 
33 
particularly to reporters, 
