It would be a pleasing task for ingenious youth
with a bent towards science to seek the utility of this arrangement.
Orchids are spreading fast over the world in these days, and we may
expect to hear of other instances where a species has taken root in
alien climes like _R. coccinea_ in Brazil. I cannot cite a parallel at
present. But Mr. Sander informs me that there is a growing demand for
these plants in realms which have their own native orchids. We have an
example in the letter which has been already quoted.[7] Among customers
who write to him direct are magnates of China and Siam, an Indian and a
Javanese rajah. Orders are received--not unimportant, nor
infrequent--from merchants at Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong, Rio de
Janeiro, and smaller places, of course. It is vastly droll to hear that
some of these gentlemen import species at a great expense which an
intelligent coolie could gather for them in any quantity within a few
furlongs of their go-down! But for the most part they demand foreigners.
The plants thus distributed will be grown in the open air; naturally
they will seed; at least, we may hope so. Even _Angraecum sesquipedale_,
of which I wrote in the preceding chapter, would find a moth able to
impregnate it in South Brazil. Such species as recognize the conditions
necessary for their existence will establish themselves. It is fairly
safe to credit that in some future time, not distant, Cattleyas may
flourish in the jungles of India, Dendrobiums on the Amazons,
Phaloenopsis in the coast lands of Central America.
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