How many can trace the lineage of
Mr. Bull's _Od. delectabile_--ivory white, tinged with rose, strikingly
blotched with red and showing a golden labellum? or Mr. Sander's _Od.
Alberti-Edwardi_, which has a broad soft margin of gold about its
stately petals? Another is rosy white, closely splashed with pale
purple, and dotted round the edge with spots of the same tint so thickly
placed that they resemble a fringe. Such marvels turn up in an
importation without the slightest warning--no peculiarity betrays them
until the flowers open; when the lucky purchaser discovers that a plant
for which he gave perhaps a shilling is worth an indefinite number of
guineas.
Lycaste also is a genus peculiar to America, such a favourite among
those who know its merits that the species _L. Skinneri_ is called the
"Drawing-Room Flower." Professor Reichenbach observes in his superb
volume that many people utterly ignorant of orchids grow this plant in
their miscellaneous collection. I speak of it without prejudice, for to
my mind the bloom is stiff, heavy, and poor in colour. But there are
tremendous exceptions. In the first place, _Lycaste Skinneri alba_, the
pure white variety, beggars all description. Its great flower seems to
be sculptured in the snowiest of transparent marble. That stolid
pretentious air which offends one--offends me, at least--in the coloured
examples, becomes virginal dignity in this case.
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