"By runners and tubers, and that kind of outgrowth. That is easily
explained. The puzzle is, what are the flowers for?

"Very likely," he added, "_my_ orchid may be something extraordinary
in that way. If so I shall study it. I have often thought of making
researches as Darwin did. But hitherto I have not found the time, or
something else has happened to prevent it. The leaves are beginning to
unfold now. I do wish you would come and see them!"

But she said that the orchid-house was so hot it gave her the
headache. She had seen the plant once again, and the aërial rootlets,
which were now some of them more than a foot long, had unfortunately
reminded her of tentacles reaching out after something; and they got
into her dreams, growing after her with incredible rapidity. So that
she had settled to her entire satisfaction that she would not see that
plant again, and Wedderburn had to admire its leaves alone. They were
of the ordinary broad form, and a deep glossy green, with splashes and
dots of deep red towards the base. He knew of no other leaves quite
like them. The plant was placed on a low bench near the thermometer,
and close by was a simple arrangement by which a tap dripped on the
hot-water pipes and kept the air steamy. And he spent his afternoons
now with some regularity meditating on the approaching flowering of
this strange plant.

And at last the great thing happened. Directly he entered the little
glass house he knew that the spike had burst out, although his great
_Palaeonophis Lowii_ hid the corner where his new darling stood.
There was a new odour in the air, a rich, intensely sweet scent, that
overpowered every other in that crowded, steaming little greenhouse.