About Orchids - A Chat by Frederick Boyle
page 55 of 179 (30%)
page 55 of 179 (30%)
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concerned will be grateful. The expense of making this shipment a reader
may judge from the hints given. The Royal Mail Company's charge for freight from Manzanilla is 750l. I could give an incident of the same class yet more startling with reference to Phaloenopsis. It is proper to add that the most enterprising of Assurance Companies do not yet see their way to accept any kind of risks in the orchid trade; importers must bear all the burden. To me it seems surprising that the plants can be sold so cheap, all things considered. Many persons think and hope that prices will fall, and that may probably happen with regard to some genera. But the shrewdest of those very shrewd men who conduct the business all look for a rise. _Od. Harryanum_ always reminds me--in such an odd association of ideas as everyone has experienced--of a thunderstorm. The contrast of its intense brown blotches with the azure throat and the broad, snowy lip, affect me somehow with admiring oppression. Very absurd; but _on est fait comme ça_, as Nana excused herself. To call this most striking flower "Harryanum" is grotesque. The public is not interested in those circumstances which give the name significance for a few, and if there be any flower which demands an expressive title, it is this, in my judgment. Possibly it was some Indian report which had slipped his recollection that led Roezl to predict the discovery of a new Odontoglot, unlike any other, in the very district where _Od. Harryanum_ was found after his death, though the story is quoted as an example of that instinct which guides the heaven-born collector. The first plants came unannounced in a small box sent by Señor Pantocha, of Colombia, to Messrs. Horsman in 1885, and they were flowered next year by Messrs. Veitch. The dullest who sees it can now imagine the excitement when this marvel was displayed, coming from an unknown habitat. Roezl's prediction occurred to many of his acquaintance, I have heard; but Mr. |
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