site bars and mottlings of rose, brown,
and purple begin to take a greenish hue forthwith. A few days later, the
lip jerks itself off with a sudden movement, as observers declare. Then
the sepals and petals remaining take flesh, thicken and thicken, while
the hues fade and the green encroaches, until, presently, they assume
the likeness of a flower, abnormal in shape but perfect, of dense green
wax.

This Cypripedium of ours will ripen its seed in about twelve months,
more or less. Then the capsule, two inches long and two-thirds of an
inch diameter, will burst. Mr. Maynard will cut it off, open it wide,
and scatter the thousands of seeds therein, perhaps 150,000, over pots
in which orchids are growing. After experiments innumerable, this has
been found the best course. The particles, no bigger than a grain of
dust, begin to swell at once, reach the size of a mustard-seed, and in
five or six weeks--or as many months--they put out a tiny leaf, then a
tiny root, presently another leaf, and in four or five years we may look
for the hybridized flower. Long before, naturally, they have been
established in their own pots.

Strange incidents occur continually in this pursuit, as may be believed.
Nine years since, Mr. Godseff crossed _Catasetum macrocarpum_ with
_Catasetum callosum_. The seed ripened, and in due time it was sown; but
none ever germinated in the proper place. A long while afterwards Mr.
Godseff remarked a tiny little green speck in a crevice above the door
of this same house. It grew and grew very fast, never receiving water
unless by the rarest accident, until those experts could identify a
healthy young Catasetum. And there it has flourished ever since,
receiving no attention; for it is the first rule in orchid culture to
leave a plant to itself where it is doing well, no matter how strange
the circumstances may appear to us. This Catasetum, wafted by the wind,
when the seed was sown, found conditions suitable where it lighted, and
quickened, whilst all its fellows, carefully provided for, died without
a sign. It thrives upon the moisture of the house. In a very few years
it will flower. In another case, when all hope of the germination of a
quantity of seed had long been lost, it became necessary to take up the
wooden trellis that formed the flooring of the path; a fine crop of
young hybrids was discovered clinging to the under side.

The amateur who has followed us thus far with interest, may inquire how