About Orchids, page 109 by Frederick Boyle
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rbidge 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. This is assuredly the biggest orchid ever brought to Europe. Its snakey pseudo-bulbs measure nine feet, and the old flower spikes stood eighteen feet high. It will be found in the Victoria Regia house, growing strongly.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: Vanda Lowii is properly called Renanthera Lowii.]
[Footnote 7: Vide page 100.]
THE LOST ORCHID.
Not a few orchids are "lost"--have been described that is, and named, even linger in some great collection, but, bearing no history, cannot now be found. Such, for instance, are Cattleya Jongheana, Cymbidium