174 



THH ORCHID WORLD. 



[May, 1914- 



Vanda cosrulea Weslonbirt variety. 



ORCHID COLLECTING. 



TO give an account of my Orchid hunts 

 I should have to cover a lot of ground 

 to enumerate all my adventures ni 

 one article. I will, therefore, confine my 

 remarks to one individual trip, which m this 

 instance was a visit to Burma and the more 

 recently opened up country in the Shan 

 States, parts of which are practically 

 unexplored so far as the Orchid collector is 

 concerned. From enquiries on the spot I 

 found that very few Europeans had visited 

 the locality in question, and these were more 

 or less official visits. It was, as a matter of 

 fact, through the good favour of such an 

 official, on prospecting work, that I had the 

 good fortune of striking a rich locality where 

 Orchids were plentiful. 



I am in this instance confining my narrative 

 to what I considered a remarkably good 

 discovery of Vanda coerulea. I was of course 

 :j\vare that this species existed more or less 

 in the Shan States, and the recent article in 

 the Orchid World, December, 191 3, very 

 aj^itly described the collecting of the plants. 

 The Shan States, however, extends over a 

 very large area, and the writer's description 

 apparently applies to the better known parts 

 where Vanda coerulea is equally as plentiful, 

 judging by the wholesale bullock loads 

 collected. It is for this latter reason that I 

 do not desire to divulge the particular locality 

 I refer to, as I am one of the class of Orchid 

 lovers who do not agree to the wholesale 

 denudation of Orchids from their particular 

 habitat, especially as the majority of collectors 

 I have come' across have no scruples where 



