HUNTING FOR ORCHIDS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 65, 3 August 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

HUNTING FOR ORCHIDS

f FORTUNES IN FLOWERS. g Some rare orchids, valued at 10,000d01., |. and gathered in the Philippines and in Central America, were recently shipped from San Mafeo, California, for King George and two liritis'h peers. His Majj. .jesty has for long been an enthusiastic lover of this, the most wonderful and exquisite of (lowers, but whether the consignment en route will be the means of adding a unique species to the Royal colj. lection is just one of those speculative t and uncertain things which have tended tc- invest the orchid with a romance and fascination unequalled by any one of the ' families of the vegetable kingdom. (; The possession of a rare or unique spe- ■, cies of this lovely exotic is, of course, the r supreme ambition of all connoisseurs, 1 and more than one is prepared to pay a . big price for it. As a matter of fact, ; fortunes frequently change hands when orchids of exceptional rarity are in the . market. Mr. Day, of Tottenham, for j instance, a few years ago received no . less than £12,000 from an American synI dicate for half of his famous collection, t the other half fetching a precisely simi- [ lar sum at an auction. < Mr. Chamberlain, again, must have t spent many thousands in connection with i his celebrated collection, but the honor of I having absolutely the finest collection of , orchids in the country is shared by Sir , Trevor Lawrence and Baron Sehroeder, i each having probably paid about £40,000 for the pleasure. Orchids grow high on the trunks of trees, and abound in the greatest profusion in the hot, damp .parts of the West and East Indies, in Madagascar, and other islands in the same region, in the moist forests of Brazil, the warm parts of Central America, and in Western Mexico. Private individuals, like the connoisseurs mentioned—and several of the leading nurserymen send experts in or-chid-collecting to those countries in which rare or otherwise valuable species are known to exist. There is thus considerable commerce in orchids, in connection with which large sums of money are circulated annually. Lives have been sacrificed and fortunes lost, in the search for new and-unique specimens. Fever has claimed its victims and dismal morasses, which even 1 the natives fear to tread, but which the intrepid orchid-hunter explores for months at a time in the hope that the murderous breath of the malaria] swamp may have matured some glorious and hitherto unknown variety. The difficulties of the work are as great as the danger. One collector was known to wade up to his waist in mud for a fortnight seeking a specimen of which he had heard, and another lived among the Indians of Brazil for nine months, peering through the tangled jungle for a lost variety. To obtain the orchids which, as already mentioned, grow on trees, the collector must hire a certain area of woodland, with a right to fell the timber. As the natives cannot be trusted to climb the trees and gather the plants, the wasteful plan of cutting down the trees is adopted, and he gathers his specimens from the fallen trunks. The forest .being often inland, the plants, after having been collected, must be carried to river or sea. In one case they were carried for six weeks on men's backs from the mountains to a river, then six weeks in canoes wi'th 20 portages, and then conveyed over the ocean. Another man who journeyed into the wilds of Madagascar after the beautiful little "Phalenopsis," worth from a guinea upwards, was seized by the infuriated natives, and, after being taken to a place of sacrifice, tortured to death. Forstermann, the German, who holds the record of having discovered nearly 40 orchids which were previously unknown to science, tells the story of how one of his finds cost a human life. He was far up in the wilds of the Siamese forest, when, just before sunset, he noticed with his field glasses an orchid which he did not know growing high on a tree overhead. The question was whether to stop and climb for it. It was late, and the ground was unsuitable for camping. His guide volunteered to go on ahead and search for a camping place while the others procured the orchid. This was agreed to, and the party were busy securing the plant, when a terrible scream was heard in the brush in front. Forstermann ran as hard as he could in the direction of 'the sound, and was just in time ,to see a large tiger carrying off his friend. He followed, but darkness fell, and it was not until next morning that they managed to track and kill the man-eater and bury the remains of its victim. The orchid was named after the man of .whose death it had been indirectly the cause. The business of seeking out orchidhunters is speculative in the highest degree. One ,man may cost his employer £3OOO a year, and there is no check upon his work. A man is not blamed for heavy losses. "One season," .remarked a great dealer, ''l lost £l3o*o on one of my collectors, and £BOO on another." Take, for instance, Anioquia, perhaps the wettest country under the sun, and the habitat of the valuable "Odontoglossum." The only means of transport there are Indians and canoes, and, if out of a consignment of 40,000 plants, 3000 are landed more or less alive, the collector lias reason to congratulate himself. Some, indeed, ,are not even so fortunate. With all their skill, dealers have to I confess their inability to value with certainty newly-arrived orchid plants. The "Cypripedium insigne," one of the commonest orchids, may be taken as a ease in point. 'Mr. Sanders was examining a lot of these plants at St. Albans one day, and noticed among all the hundreds he inspected -that one flower stalk was of pale yellow ,and green, instead of brown. He at once put it aside, and when the flower opened and proved to be golden, and distinct from the normal |green, he divided the plant into two pieces. One lie sold for 75 guineas to Baron Shroeder, and the other half to Mr. Measures, of Streatham, for 100 guineas—175 guineas for a plant which, had it been like its companions, might have been worth a shilling! Another orchid romance again finds Mr Sanders as the central figure. At & public auction a few years ago he became the possessor of a unique specimen of the "Odontoglossum erispum pittianum," for which he paid the record price of 1150 guineas! Originally purchased with a number of imported bulbs of doubtful value, when it flowered its beauty attracted considerable attention, 'and it was sold to Mr. H. Pitt for £245. He greatly improved it by cultivation, and at Messrs Prothero and Morris auction rooms, 'after an exciting contest, it passed into Mr. Sanders' hands for the above sum.