Orchid Show of the Massachusetts Horticul- 
tural Society 
Held in Horticultural Hall, Boston, March 24th.-28th 
I suppose there are words delicate but colorful and vivid enough 
to describe the flowers exhibited in the recent Boston Orchid Show. 
The hall was transformed into a place so charming that four days 
seemed too short an existance. The arrangement was perfect; no 
crowding, no artificial showiness, no huddling together of seasonable 
and unseasonable plants. 
Being an unpretentious, out-door gardener to whom Orchids meant 
three Cattleyeas tied with mauve ribbon and set off with a Maiden- 
hair Fern or two, or a few gaunt Cypropediums suspended in wooden 
cages from the roof of an affluent friend's green-house, the sight of 
thousands of Orchids in hundreds of varieties was truly thrilling. I 
found a new and unsuspected object for enthusiasm. 
In the Lecture Hall were the Orchids of Mr. Albert C. Burrage of 
Orchidvale, Beverly Farms. In the centre had been made great 
trees, bark and moss-covered, and on these were growing the Epiphytal 
or Tree-growing Orchids, many varieties of Phalaenopsis, long, 
graceful sprays of mauve or white. Professor Sargent's favorite and 
mine; Cattleyeas, Dendrodiums, Laelias, Oncidiums, Odontoglossis, 
not crowded together but springing here and there from the rough, 
gray trunks, set off by Httle ferns and vines. Along one side was a 
bank and there grew the Terrestrial Orchids, the most showy of 
which were the Cymbidiums whose sprays two and three feet long 
were topped with many cream, faun and tawny yellow flowers, 
splashed and dotted with color. I had not known this beautiful 
variety which combines exotic perfection with a certain wholesome 
beauty of habit and texture. The Cj^ropediums were growing on 
the bank and other varieties though not so many as on the trees. 
Across from this bank was another, reaching from floor to ceiling, 
where were grouped all the hundreds of varieties grown by Mr. 
Burrage. There was a true, rich, blue Vanda Caerulea, charming 
Laelia-Cattleyeasin salmon-rose and bronzy orange tones, the bright, 
sharp scarlet of Sophronitis Grandiflora and all the creamy whites, 
pinky mauves and greenish yellows that the texture of the Orchid so 
beautifully shows. Seemingly floating over all was a strange, comet- 
like flower, strangely called Angraecum sesquepedale. 
On the third side of the room were specimen plants, Cattleyeas 
with fifty or more, great, perfect blooms, Cymbidiums with twenty 
stalks of primrose flowers, all perfectly grown and perfectly shown. 
There was an exhibit, too of Orchids from the smallest seedhngs, 
through the various stages to a ripe old age. 
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