Mr. F.W. Burbidge heard a tree fall in the jungle one night
when he was four miles away, and on visiting the spot, he found, "right
in the collar of the trunk, a Grammatophyllum big enough to fill a
Pickford's van, just opening its golden-brown spotted flowers, on stout
spikes two yards long." It is not to be hoped that we shall ever see
monsters like these in Europe. The genus, indeed, is unruly. _G.
speciosum_ has been grown to six feet high, I believe, which is big
enough to satisfy the modest amateur, especially when it develops leaves
two feet long. The flowers are--that is, they ought to be--six inches in
diameter, rich yellow, blotched with reddish purple. They have some
giants at Kew now, of which fine things are expected. _G.
Measureseanum_, named after Mr. Measures, a leading amateur, is pale
buff, speckled with chocolate, the ends of the sepals and petals
charmingly tipped with the same hue. Within the last few months Mr.
Sander has obtained _G. multiflorum_ from the Philippines, which seems
to be not only the most beautiful, but the easiest to cultivate of those
yet introduced. Its flowers droop in a garland of pale green and yellow,
splashed with brown, not loosely set, as is the rule, but scarcely half
an inch apart. The effect is said to be lovely beyond description. We
may hope to judge for ourselves in no long time, for Mr. Sander has
presented a wondrous specimen to the Royal Gardens, Kew.
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