Orange blooms sweeten the air, my children play, and my best poem be written."

In conclusion I should like to tender my best thanks to the ranchers and other gentlemen who have so graciously given me such able assistance in the way of information, which has enabled me to lay before the Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society an idea of the resources and advantages of this beautiful country of California.

SKETCHES OF WILD ORCHIDS IN GUIANA.

By EVERARD F. IM THURN, F.R.H.S.

NEARLY twenty-one years ago the Fates led me to Guiana and, nearly ever since, have detained me in the wilder and more remote parts of that region. Throughout I have taken an interest in the plants, and especially in the Orchids; and of late years whatever time I have been able to afford to botanical hobbies has been devoted almost exclusively to the somewhat arduous task of collecting, drying, dissecting, and drawing Orchids, many of them so small that an entire clump, root and all, and in full flower, would pass without touching through a finger-ring, and in making frantic efforts to grow these in my garden. It has been a long promise to the Editor of the Royal Horticultural Society's Journal" that I should give him some notes of the experiences thus gained, and he now insists on the immediate performance of this promise.

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I find myself embarrassed by the vast number of the scraps of Orchid lore which the abovementioned circumstances have put into my head, and still more by the desultory and unconnected character of the collection. Probably the only feasible way to fulfil my promise at present is to jot down certain pictures which remain in my mind of scenes in which Orchids were a prominent feature, and to leave it to my readers to pick out for themselves the scraps of information as to the natural conditions under which the Orchids mentioned grow, and as to the artificial conditions which may therefore be best applied in the cultivation of these.

Lest, however, my horticultural readers should after this

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expect too much of me, I will add that the showiness of any particular species is but a small merit in my eyes. I have spent many more hours and much more thought over what I overheard a very famous English horticulturist, a few weeks ago, at one of the shows in the Drill Hall, refer to as rubbish, or, as we will call them, 'botanical curiosities,' than over the more showy plants. And, though to admit this is probably to destroy my own character for sanity, I am firmly convinced that the rational being would get far more delight out of the marvellous diversities and marvellous adaptations of some of my tiniest Orchids than out of the most splendid flower which, as the West Indian negro says, "fills the eye." But I promise that I will not here draw upon my experiences of the more minute aspects of Orchid life except in so far as this may be made to serve the purpose which I have in view in this paper of illustrating the natural conditions under which Orchids grow in Guiana.

The usual idea of the inexperienced is that Guiana is a land of Orchids; and so it is, but not of showy Orchids. It is doubtful if there exist in British Guiana a dozen different Orchids which the ordinary Orchid grower would care to have in his houses. Let me try what sort of list I can put together of the so-called desirable species. I should myself be inclined to put Oncidium lanceanum first for three reasons: (1) because it is a fairly common and accessible Orchid; (2) because of the great beauty both of plant and flower; and (3) because of the lasting quality of the flower. Then the two Cattleyas (C. superba and C. Lawrenciana) would come, though neither is easy to get; Zygopetalum rostratum-one of the commonest Orchids of the country-certainly merits a place; Zygopetalum venustum and Z. Burkei also come in; as does Paphinia cristata, Ionopsis paniculata, Rodriguezia (Burlingtonia) candida, and perhaps Catasetum longifolium. I doubt if there are any other "Gardener's Orchids" in British Guiana. And yet the number of species from Guiana to which I have devoted some attention is nearly 300, and many of these are very beautiful things even without the use of the microscope.

It may be well here to premise that the part of Guiana to which I shall refer lies entirely between 7 and 8 degrees N. of the Equator, and that, though the country does rise to a greater

altitude further inland, it is in the parts referred to either practically at sea level or at most not 50 feet above it; that the rainfall is heavy, the average for the year being about 90 inches; that this rainfall is distributed in two wet seasons in the year, the one lasting from December to February, and the other from April to September; that the temperature ranges from 66 degrees to 88 degrees; that the temperature falls very little during the night, and does not vary greatly throughout the year; and that almost the whole country is covered by the densest imaginable forest, only broken by the wider rivers and by small patches of "wet savannah," i.e. grass-covered swamps broken by many clumps of trees and by great stretches of an arborescent Aroid (Montrichardia), here and there by stretches of white sand reefs, also much broken by clumps of small trees, and, though not near the coast, by "dry savannahs," areas of rocky ground broken by coppices.

Orchids are to be found even at the edge of the sea; indeed, two of the best Orchids of Guiana, from the gardener's point of view, are there to be found.

The sea-coast of Guiana, where it has not been altered by the hand of man, is of a somewhat peculiar nature, due to its past history. It has been built up by the current from the mouth of the Amazon, which runs up in a north-westerly direction, carrying with it much matter from the Amazon and other rivers which it passes in its course. Where checked by the current from the Orinoko it has to deposit its load. Thus the shore is mainly built up of soft alluvial mud, which has been received on its arrival from the Amazon, and has been retained by the marvellously intricate thicket of mangrove roots quite into which the up current runs. Here and there, however, that part of the current which strikes on a particular part of the coast has brought not mud but sand and broken shell, which it there heaps up, and thus forms sandbanks, breaking the otherwise uninterrupted line of mangrove growth. Behind such a sandbank the mangroves often attain to a considerable size, and their trunks are not much obscured by young growth. It is high up on trees of this kind, exposed almost to the full blaze of the sun, that that most beautiful of all our Orchids, Oncidium lanceanum, grows most luxuriantly. It is, however, a widely but sparsely distributed species throughout the country. Though it

appears to be very difficult to grow in an Orchid-house, it is a most successful garden Orchid in the colony. Masses of it may be seen in the older gardens in Georgetown; and in one case in which one of these masses was sold for removal it was found to be too big for the cart which was sent to fetch it, and had to be divided.

The other Orchid which is to be seen in the same kind of place is Diacrium (Epidendrum) bicornutum, which clings to the more exposed boughs, and seems to enjoy the blaze of the sun and the full exposure to the salt-laden wind.

For many miles from the sea the broad rivers are edged by mangroves of large size, the otherwise bare trunks of which are in places almost clothed by the free-flowering masses of Epidendrum fragrans with its honey-like scent. Nearer to the water's edge great masses of the pretty little Lanium microphyllum enjoy the shade of the overhanging boughs, and are sometimes bathed in the rising tide. Brassia and Catasetums are common. In places there are colonies of Coryanthes maculata, the roots of each matted together by ants into a round black mass. Two Epidendrums (E. imatophyllum and E. Schomburgkii) occur in the same places, and with much the same habits.

From the large main rivers one can penetrate into the dense forest which covers nearly the whole country by following up the course of one of the innumerable creeks.

To English ears a creek is a backwater, generally, I think, an arm of the sea; but in the originally Dutch colonies of Guiana the word means a stream or rivulet, or even a fair-sized river, provided it is not one of the main rivers of the colony. Here, however, we shall have to do with one of the innumerable small creeks or rivulets draining that great primeval forest which, except in the few places touched by the hand of man, stretches with hardly a break from where the crowded mangrove trees are lifted on their stilt-like roots over the mud-laden brackish water to the highlands of the interior.

From some forest swamp, often at a great distance from the main river, the water of such a creek gathers itself almost imperceptibly into a definite channel, down the intricate loops and coils and turns of which it creeps, generally in deep shade, and deepens for many miles, till (even its mouth almost hidden in

trees) it adds itself to the mighty gathering of its fellows which have already lost themselves in the main river.

Miners speak of the oozing of water from the over-saturated earth as "seepage." Such a creek as I mean is the seepage of the tropical forest swamp. It indeed has a channel-near the mouth often a deep channel-but it has, in its upper reaches, no banks, so that while part of its water hurries leisurely to the river, the rest spreads for an indefinite distance on each side; and there, having washed bare the fantastic tree roots, lies half stagnant, and loads and overloads the air imprisoned between the floor and the roof of the forest.

And just as the densely matted forest roof almost shuts in the moisture-laden air, so it almost shuts out the light of the sun. Even when at midday the tropic sun is reflected with most dazzling brilliance from the tropic sky above, here below there is hardly more than twilight pierced by countless tiny shafts of full light, which here and there strike through the less crowded leaves far down into the gloom.

The light is too faint for much plant life, and the black vegetable refuse which represents the soil is almost bare. Moss and such delicately small growths as cover our English ground are nowhere to be seen. What plants are there are mostly of striking and singular aspect, giving the scene a weird and uncanny look.

There are weedy clumps of great sedgelike plants. There are a few ground-loving Aroids with quaintly coloured and marked stems, with quainter heart-shaped leaves, and with quaintest flowers. There are ferns, some large and coarse-growing, the fronds of these loaded with the young plants, which would perish in the too great moisture below; others of lower stature and more delicately cut, the fronds of these often coated with the mud washed on to them by the last flood. Here and there-and these are the greenest patches--a beautiful and rampantly growing Selaginella has spread itself over places where the ground is a little higher; while close by, and in most beautiful contrast, are the broad oval leaves of the sweet-smelling Wood Lily (Hymenocallis guianensis), lifting toward the light its stately cluster of delicately white trumpet-shaped flowers, from which hang loosely down the curiously long, narrow, and quaintly twisted petals.