The Woodlands Orchids, Described and Illustrated

Masdevallias are reckoned among the most difficult of orchids to import. From their home in cool uplands they must be transported through some of the hottest regions on the globe, and they have no pseudo-bulbs to sustain them; a leaf and a root, one may say, compose each tiny plant.

Mr. Arnold, therefore, was provided with some sacks of Sphagnum moss in which to stow his finds. These sacks he registered among his personal baggage. At Waterloo, however, the station-master demurred. Moss, said he, must travel by goods train. Arnold had not allowed himself time to spare. The Royal mail steamer would leave within an hour of his arrival at Southampton; to go without his moss was useless; and a pig-headed official refused to pass it! Mr. Arnold does not profess to be meek. He remonstrated with so much energy that the station-master fled the scene. There was just time enough to load up the article in dispute and jump into a carriage, helped by a friendly stranger.

The stranger had showed his friendliness before that. Standing at the open door, he supported Arnold’s cause with singular warmth and vociferation. The latter was grateful, of course, and when he learned that his ally was a fellow-passenger to Caracas he expressed the hope that they might share a cabin. There was no difficulty about that. In short, they chummed.

This young man announced himself as Mr. Thompson, a traveller in the hardware line, but he showed an intelligent curiosity about things in general – about orchids, for instance, when he learned that such was Arnold’s business. Would it be possible for an ignoramus to make a few pounds that way? – how should he set about it? – which is the class of article most in demand just now, and where is it found? Before the voyage ended, that traveller in the hardware line knew as much about Masdevallia Tovarensis as Arnold could tell him. He bade goodbye aboard ship, for pressing business obliged him to start up country forthwith.

Late in the afternoon Arnold, who was to stay some days at Caracas, met his agent on the Plaza. ‘By the bye,’ said that gentleman, ‘are you aware that Mr. Blank started this morning in the direction of Tovar?’

Now Mr. Blank was a man of substance who began orchid-growing as an amateur, but of late had turned professional.

‘Bless me!’ cried Arnold, ‘is he here?’

The agent stared. ‘Why, as I understood, he travelled in the same ship with you.’

Arnold seized him by the wrist, while in his mind’s eye he reviewed all the passengers; they were not many. The only one who could possibly be Mr. Blank was – Mr. Thompson!

‘Get me a horse, sir!’ he sputtered. ‘Which way has the villain gone? And a guide – with another horse! I’ll pay anything! I’ll go with you to hire them! Come along!’ Ten minutes afterwards he was on the track, full gallop, stopping only at the hotel to get his pistol.

At a roadside posada, fifteen miles beyond, Mr. Blank was supping in peace. The door opened. Arnold stalked in. He was in that mood of intensest passion when a man’s actions are stiff though he trembles – all his muscles rigid with the effort of self-restraint.

Quietly he barred the door and quietly he sat down opposite to Mr. Blank, putting his revolver on the board.

‘Get your pistol, sir,’ said he, scarcely above a whisper, ‘we’re going to settle this business.’ But Mr. Blank, after a frenzied stare, had withdrawn beneath the table. Arnold hauled him out by the legs, demanding instant combat.

But this was not the man to fight. He preferred to sign a confession and a promise, guaranteed by most impressive oaths, not to revisit those parts for six months. Then Arnold started him back, supperless, in the dark.

It may be added that the gentleman whom I have named Mr. Blank lost his life in 1892, when seeking the habitat of Dendrobium Schröderianum, under circumstances not wholly dissimilar. As in this case he sought to reap where he had not sown. But peace be with him!

Without more adventures Arnold found Masdevallia Tovarensis. Of the first consignment he despatched, forty thousand arrived in good health. This quest completed in shorter time than had been allowed, he looked for another ‘job.’ One is only embarrassed by the choice in that region. Upon the whole it seemed most judicious to collect Cattleya Mossiae. And Arnold set off for the hunting-grounds.

On this journey he saw the monster I have described. It grew beside the dwelling of an Indian – not properly to be termed a ‘hut,’ nor a ‘house.’ The man was a coffee-planter in a very small way. Nothing that Arnold could offer tempted him in the least. His grandfather ‘planted’ the Cattleya, and from that day it had been a privilege of the family to decorate one portion of the neighbouring church with its flowers when a certain great feast came round. Arnold tried to interest the daughter – a very pretty girl: the Indian type there is distinctly handsome. Then he tried her lover, who seemed willing to exert his influence for the consideration of a real English gun. Arnold could not spare his own; he had no other, and the young Indian would not accept promises. So the matter fell through.

Three years afterwards Arnold was commissioned to seek Cattleya Mossiae again. Not forgetting the giant, he thought it worth while to take a ‘real English gun’ with him, though doubtless the maiden was a wife long since, and her husband might ask for a more useful present. In due course he reached the spot – a small Indian village in the mountains, some fifteen miles from Caracas. The Cattleya was still there, perched aloft, as big as a hogshead. Arnold’s first glance was given to it; then he looked at the owner’s hospitable dwelling. It also was still there, but changed. Tidy it had never been, but now it was ruinous. None of the village huts could be seen, standing as they did each in its ‘compound’ – a bower of palm and plantains, fruit-trees, above all, flowers. Afterwards he perceived that they had all been lately rebuilt.

The old Indian survived, but it was not from him that Arnold learned the story. The Cura told it. There had been a pronunciamiento somewhere in the country, and the Government sent small bodies of troops – pressgangs, in fact – to enlist ‘volunteers.’ One of these came to the village. The officer in command, a good-looking young man, took up his abode in the Indian’s house and presently made it his headquarters, whence to direct the man-hunts. Upon that pretext he stayed several weeks, to the delight of the villagers, who were spared.

But one evening there was an outbreak. The lover rushed along the street, dripping with blood – the officer, his sword drawn, pursuing. He ran into his hut and snatched a gun from the wall. But it was too late; the other cut him down. The day’s field work was over – all the Indians had returned. They seized their machetes, yelling vengeance, and attacked the officer. But his soldiers also were close by. They ran up, firing as they ran. Some villagers were killed, more wounded; the place was sacked. Next morning early the detachment moved off. When the fugitives returning counted their loss, the pretty daughter of old José was missing. The dead lay where they fell, and she was not among them.

The Cura, an amiable veteran, did not doubt that she had been carried off by force; was not this girl the most devout and dutiful in the parish? He saddled his mule forthwith and rode into Caracas. The officer had delivered his report, which may be easily imagined. Governments in Spanish America at this day resent any kind of interference from the clergy. Had a layman complained, doubtless there would have been an inquiry; in Venezuela, as elsewhere, maidens are not to be carried off by young aristocrats and no word said. But the authorities simply called on the accused for an explanation, accepted his statement that the girl followed him of her free-will, and recommended him to marry her. This he did, as Arnold ascertained. As for the rest —quien sabe?

These sad events account for the old Indian’s behaviour. Arnold found him at home, and with him a young man not to be recognised at first, who proved to be the lover. The muscles of his neck had been severed, causing him to hold his head awry, and a slash had partially disabled his right arm. Arnold was told abruptly that he could not lodge there, and he withdrew. But on a sudden the lover whispered eagerly. They called him back.

‘Will you buy the Cattleya?’ asked old José.

‘How much?’

‘Fifty dollars and a good gun.’

‘It’s a bargain.’

He paid there and then, nor quitted the spot, though very hungry, until his followers had sawn through the branch and lowered its burden to the ground. Carrying his spoil in triumph, suspended on a pole, Arnold sought the Cura’s house. There he heard the tale I have unfolded.

Not until evening did the Padre chance to see the giant Cattleya. He was vexed, naturally, since his church lost its accustomed due. But when Arnold told what he had paid for it, the good man was deeply moved. ‘Holy Virgin and all saints!’ he cried, ‘there will be murder!’ And he set off running to the Indian’s house. It was empty. José and the lover had been seen on the road to Caracas hours before – with the gun.

I am sorry that I cannot finish the story; too often we miss the dénoûment in romances of actual life. But the Cura felt no doubt. It may be to-night, or next year, or ten years hence, he said, but the captain is doomed. Our Indians never forget nor forgive, nor fail when at length they strike.

The murder was not announced whilst Arnold remained in the country. But all whom he questioned gave the same forecast. Unless the Indians were seized or died they would surely have vengeance.

CYPRIPEDIUM INSIGNE

Here is a house full of Cypripedium insigne; nothing else therein save a row of big Cymbidiums in vases down the middle, Odontoglossum citrosmum and Cattleya citrina hanging on wires overhead. Every one knows this commonest of Cypripeds, though many may be unacquainted with the name. Once I looked into a show of window-gardening in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, and among the poor plants there, treasures of the poorest, I found a Cypripedium insigne – very healthy and well-grown too. But when I called the judges’ attention, they politely refused to believe me, though none of them could say what the mysterious vegetable was – not the least curious detail of the incident. The flower cannot be called beautiful, but undeniably it is quaint, and the honest unsophisticated public loves it. Moreover the bloom appears in November, lasting till Christmas, if kept quite cool. The species was introduced from Sylhet so long ago as 1820, but it flourishes in many districts on the southern slope of the Himalayas. New habitats are constantly discovered.

There are 505 plants in this house, and if individual flowers be not striking commonly – that is, flowers of the normal type – the spectacle is as pretty as curious when hundreds are open at once, apple-green, speckled with brown and tipped with white. But to my taste, as a ‘grower,’ the sight is pleasant at all seasons, for the green and glossy leaves encircle each pot so closely that they form a bank of foliage without a gap all round. But besides this house we have one much larger elsewhere, containing no less than 2500 examples of the same species. If no two flowers of an orchid on the same plant be absolutely similar, as experts declare – and I have often proved the rule – one may fancy the sum of variation among three thousand. Individually, however, it is so minute in the bulk of Cypripedium insigne that a careless observer sees no difference among a hundred blooms. I note some of the prominent exceptions.

Clarissimum.– Large, all white, except a greenish tinge at base of the dorsal, and the broad yellow shield of the column.

Laura Kimball, on the other hand, is all ochreous yellow, save the handsome white crown of the dorsal and a narrow white margin descending from it.

Statterianum is much like this, but spotted in the usual way.

Bohnhoffianum has a dorsal of curious shape. The crest rises sharply between square shoulders which fold over, displaying the reverse. It has no spots, but at the base is a chestnut blotch, changing to vivid green, which again vanishes abruptly, leaving a broad white margin. Vivid green also are the petals, with brown lines; the slipper paler. This example is unique.

Macfarlanei is all yellowish green, with a white crest.

Amesiae.– The dorsal has a broad white outline and a drooping crest. To white succeeds a brilliant green, and to that, in the middle, bright chestnut. Chestnut lines also, and dots, mount upward. The green petals are similarly lined, and the slipper is greenish, tinged with chestnut.

Longisepalum is flesh-colour, with a greenish tinge and pink spots on the very long dorsal. The pink spots change to lines upon the petals. Slipper ruddy green.

Dimmockianum.– The broad and handsome dorsal is green, with white margin. A red stain at the base is continued in lines of spots upwards. The petals are scored with the same colour.

Measuresiae.– Big, with a grand dorsal, pale grass-green below, broadly whitening as it swells. Petals the same green, with a dark midrib and fainter lines. Slipper yellow.

Rona is an example of the common type in its utmost perfection – large, symmetrical, its green tinge the liveliest possible, its white both snowy and broad, and its spots so vigorously imprinted that they rise above the surface like splashes of solid chocolate.

Majesticum is another of the same class, but distinguished by the enormous size of its dorsal.

Dorothy.– Dorsal greenish yellow, with faint spots of chestnut and a broad white margin. Petals and slipper the same greenish-yellow tone.

R. H. Measures.– For size as for colour this variety is astonishing. Its gigantic dorsal is white, prettily stained at base with pale green, in which are enormous red spots, irregularly set. Petals tawny greenish, with lines and dots of red. The slipper matches.

Harefield Hall variety resembles this, but smaller. The great spots of the dorsal are more crimson, the petals and slipper a darker hue.

Frederico.– Within a broad white outline the dorsal is all yellow, heavily spotted and splashed with chestnut. The reddish tawny petals are lined and spotted with chestnut, and the tawny slipper shows a chestnut network.

Corrugatum.– The name refers to a peculiarity unique and inexplicable. The slipper, so smooth in every other case, has a strong breastbone, so to say, and five projecting ribs on either side, arching round diagonally from the back – pale brown on a darker ground. The dorsal is all yellow, spotted with brown, but the crest overhangs, showing its white underside.

Drewett’s variety.– Dorsal white, with a green base and huge blotches of red-brown; greenish petals lined with the same; ruddy greenish slipper.

Eximium.– A natural hybrid doubtless, though we cannot guess what its other parent may be; it came among a lot of the ordinary form. Very small. The funny little dorsal is yellow, spotted throughout with red. The small petals have a crimson tinge, much darker in the upper length. Slipper dull crimson; the yellow shield of the column is very conspicuous on that ground.

Hector.– The dorsal is pale grass-green, with a white crest and margin and large chestnut spots; petals and slipper reddish ochre.

Punctatum is a title very commonly bestowed when the usual spots run together, making small blotches, arranged in lines; often the petals have a white margin, more or less broad, which shows them off.

Here also I should mention the famous Cyp. ins. Sanderae, though, as a matter of fact, it is lodged elsewhere. The story of this wonderful orchid has often been told, but not every one has heard it. I may be allowed to quote my own version, published in About Orchids – a Chat (Chapman and Hall, 1893). ‘Among a great number of Cypripedium insigne received at St. Albans, and “established” there, Mr. Sander noted one presently of which the flower-stalk was yellow instead of brown, as is usual. Sharp eyes are a valuable item of the orchid-growers’ stock-in-trade, for the smallest peculiarity among such “sportive” objects should not be neglected. Carefully he put the yellow-stalk aside. In due course the flower opened and proved to be all golden. Mr. Sander cut his plant in two, sold half for seventy-five guineas at Protheroe’s auction rooms, and the other half to Mr. R. H. Measures. One of the purchasers divided his plant and sold two bits at a hundred guineas each. Another piece was bought back by Mr. Sander, who wanted it for hybridising, at two hundred and fifty guineas.’ Not less than forty exist perhaps at the present time, for as soon as a morsel proves big enough to be divided, divided it is. Here we have two fine plants and a healthy young fragment.

To describe the flower is an ungrateful task. Tints so exquisitely soft are not to be defined in words; it is pleasanter to sum them up in the phrase ‘all golden,’ as I did formerly, when there was no need for precision. But here I must be specific, and in truth Cypripedium insigne Sanderae is not to be so described. The dorsal, beautifully waved, has a broad white margin and a cloud of the tenderest grass-green in the midst, covered with a soft green network. There are a few tiniest specks of brown on either side the midrib. The petals might be termed palest primrose, but when compared with the pure yellow slipper a pretty tinge of green declares itself. A marvel of daintiness and purity.

In this house hang Catt. citrina, Odont. citrosmum, and Laelia Jongheana – five rows. Of the first, so charming but so common, it is enough to say that the owner of this collection has contrived to secure the very biggest examples, in their native growth, that a sane imagination could conceive – so big that I should not have credited a report of their dimensions. The ordinary form of citrosmum also demands no comment, and I deal with the interesting Laelia Jongheana elsewhere. But we have a number of citrosmum roseum, which has white sepals and petals and a pink lip; of citrosmum album, all purest white, save the yellow crest; and of the cream-coloured variety, which to my mind is loveliest of all. Sir Trevor Lawrence collects these at every opportunity, and I remember the charming display he made once at the Temple Show, when their long pendulous garlands formed the backing to his stand.

STORY OF CATTLEYA SKINNERI ALBA

The annals of botany are full of incident and adventure, especially that branch which deals with orchids. All manner of odd references and associations one finds there. I myself, having studied the subject, was not much surprised to meet with a tale of orchids and cock-fighting lately; but others may like to hear how such an odd connection arose.

The name of the orchid was Cattleya Skinneri alba, one of the rarest and most beautiful we have; the name of the hero, Benedict Roezl, greatest of all collectors. This experience gives some notion of his ready wit, cool daring, and resource. But I could tell some even more characteristic.

It is necessary to say that Cattleya Skinneri tout court– a charming rosy flower – was discovered by Mr. Skinner long before this date – in 1836; but no white Cattleya had yet been heard of.

It was in 1870. Roezl had made a very successful foray in the neighbourhood of Tetonicapan, Guatemala, and with a long train of mules he was descending towards the coast. His head mozo could be trusted; the perils of the road – streams, mud, precipices, and brigands – had been left behind; Roezl, rejoicing in the consciousness of good work well done, pushed on by himself towards the village where they were to spend the night.

He had not been there before, but the road – rather, the trail – was plain enough. Unfortunately it led him, after a while, into a jicara-grove. This tree, which supplies the calabash used throughout Central America, has some very odd peculiarities. Its leaves grow by fours, making a cross, and on that account, doubtless, the Indians esteem it sacred; their pagan forefathers reverenced the cross. The trunks spring at equal distances, as if planted by rule, but such is their natural habit; I have the strongest impression that Mr. Belt found a cause for this eccentricity, but the passage I cannot discover. Thirdly, jicara-trees always stand in a low-lying savannah, across which they are marshalled in lines and ‘spaced’ like soldiers on parade in open order – at least, I never saw them in another situation. Such spots are damp, and the herbage grows strong; thus the half-wild cattle are drawn thither, and before the wet season comes to an end they have trampled the whole surface, obliterating all signs of a path, if one there be, and confounding the confusion by making tracks innumerable through the jungle round.

Upon such a waste Roezl entered, and he paused forthwith to deliberate. The compass would not help him much, for if it told the direction of the village, the Indian trail which led thither might open to right or left anywhere on the far side of the grove. Travellers in those wilds must follow the beaten course.

At length he took bearings, so as to go straight at least, and rode on. Presently an Indian lad came out from the forest behind him, but stopped at sight of the tall stranger. Roezl shouted – he spoke every patois of Spanish America with equal fluency. The boy advanced at length. He could only talk his native Quiché, but Roezl made out that he was going to the village – sent him ahead, and followed rejoicing. So he crossed the jicara-ground.

But in the forest beyond, it was not easy to keep up with an Indian boy trotting his fastest. In a few minutes the guide had vanished and Roezl hurried along after him. Suddenly a ragged rascal sprang out from the bushes ahead with levelled gun. Roezl glanced back. Two others barred his retreat.

Not unfamiliar with such incidents, he laughed and offered his purse – never well filled. Good humour and wit had carried him through several adventures of the kind without grave annoyance; once in Mexico, when he had not one silver coin to ransom himself, a party of bandits kept him twenty-four hours simply to enjoy his drolleries, and dismissed him with ten dollars – which was a godsend, said Roezl. But these fellows only spoke Quiché, and they were sullen dogs.

The purse did not satisfy them by any means. They made their prisoner dismount and enter the forest, marching behind him. The camp was close by, and here Roezl found his guide, hitched to a tree by the neck. The brigand officer and some of the men talked Spanish, and they appreciated Roezl’s ‘chaff,’ treating him with boisterous familiarity; but they would not hear of letting him go until the Captain’s arrival. He sat upon the ground, exchanging jokes with the ruffians, drinking their aguardiente and smoking their best cigars, like a jovial comrade.

Meantime the Indian members of the band were out of the fun, and they attended to business. What they wanted of the lad Roezl did not understand, but when he persisted in refusing they beat him savagely. At length it went so far that Roezl could not bear to hear the poor fellow’s cries. Putting the matter humorously, he begged the lieutenant to interfere, and that worthy commanded the Indians to desist.

After an hour or so the Captain appeared, and Roezl’s case was put before him; at the same moment, however, the scouts brought in a priest. He had resisted probably, for they had bound and beaten him. Such treatment was novel, doubtless. It had taken all spirit out of the holy man, who walked as humbly as could be till he set eyes on the Captain. Then his courage returned. They were old acquaintances, evidently, and the Padre claimed satisfaction. He did not get it; but the Captain set him free, with apologies. The boy proved to be his servant, and he also was released. Roezl asserted a claim to equal consideration as defender of that youth, and at length it was ungraciously allowed. Remembering, however, that his precious orchids would soon arrive and fall into the brigands’ hands, to be smashed in spite probably, he ransomed them by a bill drawn on himself at the capital. Then he rode on to overtake the priest, who was Cura of the village which he sought.