which
millionaires would have battled had they known. But, after all, the luck
of the purchasers was not unqualified. Many who read this will feel a
dreary satisfaction in learning that if their plants have perished or
dwindled, plenty of others are in like case. Further experience shows that
they were gathered at the wrong time; of course they reached Europe at the
wrong time. And nearly every one put them into heat, which was a final
error. L. Jongheana is quite a cool species. Through these accumulated
misfortunes only two out of the multitude have flowered up to this, so far
as I can hear. The dullest of mortals can feel something of the delicious
anxiety of those gentlemen who watched the great bloom swelling from day
to day when it began to show its tints, and they proved to be quite unlike
those of L. pumila. At length it opened, and L. Jongheana was recovered.

'What sort of a thing is it, after all? For an unlearned description, I
should say that the flowers--two, three, or even five in number--are from
four to five inches across--sepals, petals, and curl of lip bright
amethyst, yellow throat, white centre; the crisped and frilled margin all
round suffused with purple. It was discovered in 1855 by Libon, who died
soon after, carrying his secret with him. He was sent out by M. de Jonghe,
of Brussels--hence the name.'

Up to the present time only one of the plants here has flowered--and it
opened pure white, saving a yellow stain on the lip. This was not
altogether a surprise, for a close examination of the faded blooms
convinced M. Forget that some of them must have been white, whatever the
species might be. And he marked them accordingly. That a collector of such
experience should prove to be right was not astonishing, as I say, but
remarkably pleasant.

At the end of the house is a pretty verdant nook where Cypripedium insigne
is planted out upon banks of tufa among Adiantums and overshadowing
palms.

STORY OF BULBOPHYLLUM BARBIGERUM

This species is so rare in Europe that I must give a word of description.
The genus contains the largest and perhaps the smallest of orchids--B.
Beccarii, whose stem is six inches in diameter, carrying leaves two feet
long, and B. pygmaeum of New Zealand. They are all fly-catchers, I think,
equipped with apparatus to trap their prey, as droll commonly in the
working as ingenious in the design. Barbigerum has pseudo-bulbs less than
an inch high, and its flowers are pr