umoured,
lying in ponderous bulk upon the stage, much as it lay in a Guatemalan
forest. It is engaged in the process of "plumping up." Orchids shrivel
in their long journey, and it is the importer's first care to renew that
smooth and wholesome rotundity which indicates a conscience untroubled,
a good digestion, and an assurance of capacity to fulfil any reasonable
demand. Beneath the staging you may see myriads of withered sticks,
clumps of shrunken and furrowed bulbs by the thousand, hung above those
leaf-beds mentioned; they are "plumping" in the damp shade. The larger
pile of Catasetum--there are two--may be four feet long, three wide, and
eighteen inches thick; how many hundreds of flowers it will bear passes
computation. I remarked that when broken up into handsome pots it would
fill a greenhouse of respectable dimensions; but it appears that there
is not the least intention of dividing it. The farmer has several
clients who will snap at this natural curiosity, when, in due time, it
is put on the market.

At the far end of the house stands another piece of rockwork, another
little cascade, and more marvels than I can touch upon. In fact, there
are several which would demand all the space at my disposition, but,
happily, one reigns supreme. This is a _Cattleya Mossiae_, the pendant of
the Catasetum, by very far the largest orchid of any kind that was ever
brought to Europe. For some years Mr. Sander, so to speak, hovered round
it, employing his shrewdest and most diplomatic agents. For this was not
a forest specimen. It grew upon a high tree beside an Indian's hut, near
Caraccas, and belonged to him as absolutely as the fruit in his
compound. His great-grandfather, indeed, had "planted" it, so he
declared, but this is highly improbable. The giant has embraced two
stems of the tree, and covers them both so thickly that the bare ends of
wood at top alone betray its secret; for it was sawn off, of course,
above and below. I took the dimensions as accurately as may be, with an
object so irregular and prickly. It measures--the solid bulk of it,
leaves not counted--as nearly as possible five feet in height and four
thick--one plant, observe, pulsating through its thousand limbs from one
heart; at least, I mark no spot where the circulation has been checked
by accident or disease, and the pseudo-bulbs beyond have been obliged to
start an independent existence.

In speaking of _Loelia elegans_, I said that those Brazilian