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THE ORCHIDS. 347 
ly, called parasitic. All through the dense forests of Brazil, 
in the thickets of the Orinoco, and along the thousand shaded 
crags and valleys of the Andes, these plants are found in 
myriads, clinging to the rocks, to old and decaying trees, or 
to the stronger arms of those not yet dead, strapping their 
naked, onion-like bulbs to any chance support by roots that 
seem quite as much like rope-yarns, and with green leaves 
starting freshly in such curious situations, pushing out long 
swinging stems of flowers, that dangle hither and thither 
like strings beset with white or red or bronzy butterflies. 
Varied with an excess that is perfectly reckless and prodigal, 
à new form meets the observer at every turn. One botanist 
dismisses the subject in despair; “a whole life,” he says, 
“would be too short for the figuring of the Orchids of the 
Peruvian Andes alone.” What, then, is to be said of the 
multitudes that grow elsewhere, from the Rio de la Plata 
even as far hitherward as the Carolinas? These independent 
air-plants, as they are often called, have cut loose from the 
soil, with princely blood too aspiring for a seat so lowly, 
and mounting to heights and places inaccessible to their, 
Perhaps, envious neighbors ; while in turn they scorn to owe 
them for any but the merest holding-ground, they grow and 
bloom and triumph like a bird upon the main-truck, only 
Sitisfied with the wildest of perches, nor greatly caring even 
for that. Often the flowers are redolent of the most atid 
ful and enchanting fragrance, often they are gorgeous with 
lines that shame the pencil; always they come in such end- 
mse diversity of form—form so lovely and so provokingly 
Sttange—that we are left at a stand,—there is nothing we 
“th say about them save that God has made and given them 
beauty in such manner and degree as he has to nothing else 
‘mong all his wonderful works. ; 
These plants are not less abundant in other regions’ than 
those named. Europe has a great many of the terrestrial or 
tooted sorts, and the Cape of Good Hope is plentifully sup- 
lied with the same. The Southern United States also fur- 
