Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-05-21
Orchids,

The beholder who is not looking botanical
ly usually recognizes an orchid by its total
want of resemblance to any other flower
growing, its fantastic unreality, sometimes
the real petals blossoming out widely. some
times reducing themselves to mere threads,
and leaving the sepals to appear for them,
like some lady's maid incorporating as her
mistress with the mstress's connvsnce or,
again, the whole burden of the flower appear
ance is thrown upon the column in which the
pistil and stamen unite, and which. as in the
case of peristeria, or the Espiritu, forms the
likeness of an exquisite dove with outstretched
wings just escaping from vase of surpass-
ing whiteness, the likeness being SO strong as
to have a supernatural significance to the su-
perstitious natives of the region where it be-
longs.
The orchid is very sprite among flowers.
The dignity of the camelia, the voluptuous-
ness of the rose, the soul of the violet, are
not TO be found with the orchid it is the
flower of whim and caprice, never firing of
new development, always ready to show you
that it has other transformations in store
When you see a flower that appears to have
lost all self-control, or one that pretends in a
superlative degree to be an imitation Of some
thing that it is not, you may be tolerably GER
tain that you have an orchid before you. 1t
oveIhows with floral fun, has simian tricks
and capers, and although it cannot counter
felt speech, is a very parrot among flowers.
The power of prankish imitation with the or.
cbids is something all but preternatural it
is as if nature had finished work in the lati-
tudes where they are the most frequent, and
had set out to play, perhaps to reverse itself,
and to turn vegetable life into animal. For
this orchid is a superb Auttering butterfly
with waving antenn@ and glittering col
or, that one is an enormous spider as beaut-
nj
birds some are the mouths of fish or of 9th
er creatures almost all are grotesque in their
loveliness, and seem as if the flowers were
possessed by a spirit, a freakish, irresponsi-
BILE spirit Of jest and wanton vile that never
could quite rid itself of the necessity of be-
ing beautiful. You are half inclined to woG-
der that they do not sometimes fly away be-
fore your eyes, and their vegetable fixity
makes the grave face with which the joke
is played.
The orchid loves the marsh for the most
part Bot again it often has no root in the
ground at all, and grows then parasitically on
the trunks and branches of trees in damp
forests, and from its long hanging stem fut-
ters down its startling flowers in your face
When merely attached to the tree, but draw
ing no nutriment from it, it is called an air
plant or epiphyte. When it is neither beau
tiful nor burlesque, it is apt to rely for its
attraction upon an ineffable fragrance
Not all of the orchids belong to tropical
countries we have a few in our own woods
that rival for beauty, if not for freakishness,
most of those that the tropics can send u.s.
although the pogonias know how to be gro
tesque and freaksh after their own fashion.
But for fragrance and charm combined there
is the purple arethusa, lovely as the nymph
for whom it is named, and there is the white
fringed orchds-both of which if to be found
only in Australasian jungies would be worth
fortunes to the fnder-and, erowning ALL
there is the moccasin flower, gowing out of
its cluster of great lily like leaves in humid
shady woods, and making him who excitedly
plucks it feel rich as if he had orchid houses
at command, ,-Hdrpers Bdzdr