LITMIR.BIZ

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– I arrived here yesterday from Alba Gumara and received your much honoured letter of November 11, 1895. I shall despatch to-morrow thirty boxes, twelve of which contain the finest of all the aureas, the Monte Coromee form, and eighteen cases contain the grand Sanderiana type, all collected from the spot where these grow mixed, and I shall clear them all out. They are now nearly extinguished in this spot, and this will surely be the last season. I have finished all along the Rio Dagua, where there are no plants left; the last days I remained in that spot the people brought in two or three plants a day and some came back without a single plant. I left my boy with the Señor Altados to explore while I despatched the boxes and get funds, when I shall return for the var. papilio which Altados promised to secure for me, and go on up to the spot called the Parama San Sausa. In the boxes containing the aureas you will find about 300 seedlings which have not flowered; these are from a grove of trees where no plants have previously been gathered from, and where the finest Sanderianas and aureas grow intermingled in one family. These Cattleyas only flower once in a year – that is, from March to the end of July, and both kinds together. Some of the flowers measure upwards of 10 inches – and on a spike you can have nine flowers. I cannot wait in that fearful region longer than the flowering time; the awfully wild aspect of everything and scarcity of wholesome food and help for the work is simply maddening. If I shall find the other orchids you want I do not know. My boy is gone with Altados for the Oncidium. You may believe me that many more of these fine Cattleyas do not exist, and I can, after all, perhaps not find so good as may be in those you will now receive.

      In the last years I have seen these plants in bloom, when I was so ill with fever, and in no other place can you get such a fine type.

      The plants that I planted when I was taken ill no one found; no one has been here, and the plants had grown well and some of them very much rooted.

      Trusting that all will arrive in good order, I remain, gentlemen, your very obedient servant,

Carl Johannsen.Cattleya Mendelii

      The next division is styled the Mendelii house; more than three hundred large examples of this species – to be accurate and pedantic, it should be called a variety – occupy the centre, a hundred and eighty the stand to right.

      Cattleya Mendelii lives in the neighbourhood of Ocaña, New Granada, at an altitude of 3500 feet. It was introduced by Messrs. Backhouse in 1870, and named in honour of Mr. Sam Mendel, a great personage at Manchester in his day. Distinctions of colour are very frequent. Some pronounce it the loveliest of Cattleyas.

      Among the noble specimens here, many of them chosen for individual peculiarities, not half a dozen are named; the rest bear only letters showing their class, and certain marks understood by the initiated. It will be a relief when this system, or something like it, becomes general. And the time is not distant; at least, the privilege of granting new names at will must be restricted among those who obey the authorities.

      The few plants here which enjoy a special designation are: —

       Monica Measures.– Petals rose, with a broad streak of purple down the centre from base to point. Sepals also rose, tipped with purple. Lip of darkest crimson, fringed.

      Lily Measures.– A very large flower, white of sepal and petal. On the lip, somewhat pale, as if to show it off, is a splash of purple-crimson, sharply defined.

      R. H. Measures.– Sepals and petals tinted with rose. Enormous lip, very dark crimson, fringed.

      William Lloyd.– For this I can only repeat the last description, yet the eye perceives a difference not inconsiderable.

      Mrs. R. H. Measures.– All white saving the yellow throat and two small touches of purple in the front.

      Duke of Marlborough.– This variety moved the great Reichenbach, as he said, to ‘religious admiration.’ No doubt it is the grandest of all Mendeliis – which is much to say; very large, perfectly graceful in form, exquisitely frilled. The colour of sepal and petal pink, the throat yellow, the spreading disc magenta-crimson.

      The left side of the house is filled with large plants – some two hundred – of Cattleya Schroderae, which the learned recognise as a variety of Cattleya Trianae. It has the great advantage, however, of flowering in April, and thus, when discovered in 1884 by Arnold, collecting for Messrs. Sander, it filled a gap in the succession of Cattleyas. Henceforward the careful amateur might have one variety at least in bloom the year round. Named of course after Baroness Schröder. All Cattleyas are scented more or less at certain times of the day, but none so strongly as this, nor so persistently.

      It does not vary so much as most of its kin, but it shows perhaps a greater tendency to albinism than any – as seems natural when its colours are so much paler. Among these grand plants we have three white, notably —

      Miss Mary Measures, of which the picture is given.

      Overhead hang smaller plants of Cattleya Mossiae, Trianae, Mendelii, and Laelia Lucasiana; among them no less than five Cattleya speciosissima alba.

      Speciosissima Dawsonii is here also, finest of the coloured varieties – purplish rose of sepal and petal, lip large, yellow in the upper part, rosy crimson below, with margin finely fringed; and

      Laelia pumila marginata. – In its ordinary form L. pumila is one of the loveliest flowers that blow, and admiration is enhanced by surprise when we observe how small and slender is the plant that bears such a handsome bloom. But this rare variety is lovelier still – its broad, rosy-crimson sepals and petals and its superb crimson lip all outlined with white.

Cattleya Bowringiana

      The third division of the Cattleya house contains, in the centre, some hundreds of Mendeliis; Cattleya Bowringiana on the right hand, Cattleyas Mossiae and Wageneri on the left; all ‘specimen’ plants, for health and vigour as for size.

      Cattleya Bowringiana was imported fifteen years ago from British Honduras, but it has since been found in other parts of Central America. In colour – rosy purple, with deep purple lip, white in the throat – it does not vary much, nor in shape; at least I have not heard of any named varieties. But Cattleya Bowringiana in good health is always a cheering spectacle; its young growths push with such a demonstration of sturdiness – having to rise much beyond the ordinary stature – and its bunch of eight or ten flowers stands so high above the foliage. Nowhere may that pleasant spectacle be enjoyed with more satisfaction than at Woodlands.

Cattleya Mossiae

      Since Cattleya Mossiae was introduced more than two generations ago, and remains perhaps the commonest of the species, I need not describe it. Mrs. Moss of Ottersfoot, by Liverpool, conferred the name in 1856. Love of orchids is a heritage in that family – so is the love of rowing. The lady’s grandson, Sir J. Edwardes Moss, now living, was Stroke of the O.U.B.C. and at Eton, as were his father and his uncle. And the ancestral collection of orchids is still maintained.

      White Mossiaes are not uncommon, though their exquisite beauty makes them precious in all meanings of the term.

      Mrs. R. H. Measures is best of all – a famous variety – white of sepal and petal. Deep and graceful frilling on the lip is always characteristic of this species; it reaches absolute perfection here. The yellow of the throat is much subdued, but purple lines issuing from it spread over all the white lip, with a very curious effect. Purple also is the frilling.

      Grandiflora.– Deep rose. Petals very broad, lip immense, finely mottled and veined with purple.

      Excelsior.– Blush-rose. Lip rosy purple, with a white margin.

      Gilbert Measures.– A superb variety. White with a faint flush. Sepals and petals unusually solid. Lip very widespread, with purple lines and splashes of magenta-purple.

      Gigantea.– Biggest of all. Rosy pink. The orange of the enormous lip and the frilling specially fine.

      Catt. Wageneri, though granted a specific title, is a variety of Cattleya Mossiae, from Caracas, discovered by Wagener in 1851; white, excepting a yellow blotch on the lip.

      From the roof, among a hundred smaller plants of Cattleya, hangs a specimen of Laelia

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