Forstermann was alert that morning!
Thus put upon the track, he discovered quantities of it, bade the
tea-planter adieu, and went to work; but in the very moment of triumph a
tiger barred the way, his coolies bolted, and nothing would persuade
them to go further. Mr. Forstermann was no shikari, but he felt himself
called upon to uphold the cause of science and the honour of England at
this juncture. In great agitation he went for that feline, and, in
short, its skin still adorns Mrs. Sander's drawing-room. Thus it
happened that on a certain Thursday a small pot of _C. Spicerianum_ was
sold, as usual, for sixty guineas at Stevens's; on the Thursday
following all the world could buy fine plants at a guinea.
Cypripedium is the favourite orchid of the day. It has every advantage,
except, to my perverse mind--brilliancy of colour. None show a whole
tone; even the lovely _C. niveum_ is not pure white. My views, however,
find no backing. At all other points the genus deserves to be a
favourite. In the first place, it is the most interesting of all orchids
to science.[3] Then its endless variations of form, its astonishing
oddities, its wide range of hues, its easy culture, its readiness to
hybridize and to ripen seed, the certainty, by comparison, of rearing
the proceeds, each of these merits appeals to one or other of
orchid-growers. Many of the species which come from torrid lands,
indeed, are troublesome, but with such we are not concerned.
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