plants of this species, representing
at that time a fortune. Mr. Roezl was the luckiest and most experienced
of collectors, and he took special pains with this unique shipment.
Among twenty-seven thousand two bits survived when the cases were
opened; the agent hurried them off to Stevens's auction-rooms, and sold
them forthwith at forty guineas each. But I must stick to
Odontoglossums. Speculative as is the business of importing the northern
species, to gather those of Peru and Ecuador is almost desperate. The
roads of Colombia are good, the population civilized, conveniences
abound, if we compare that region with the orchid-bearing territories of
the south. There is a fortune to be secured by anyone who will bring to
market a lot of _O. noeveum_ in fair condition. Its habitat is
perfectly well known. I am not aware that it has a delicate
constitution; but no collector is so rash or so enthusiastic as to try
that adventure again, now that its perils are understood; and no
employer is so reckless as to urge him. The true variety of _O. Hallii_
stands in much the same case. To obtain it the explorer must march in
the bed of a torrent and on the face of a precipice alternately for an
uncertain period of time, with a river to cross about every day. And he
has to bring back his loaded mules, or Indians, over the same pathless
waste. The Roraima Mountain begins to be regarded as quite easy travel
for the orchid-hunter nowadays. If I mention that the canoe-work on this
route demands thirty-two portages, thirty-two loadings and unloadings of
the cargo, the reader can judge what a "difficult road" must be.
Ascending the Roraima, Mr. Dressel, collecting for Mr. Sander, lost his
herbarium in the Essequibo River. Savants alone are able to estimate the
awful nature of the crisis when a comrade looses his grip of that
treasure. For them it is needless to add that everything else went to
the bottom.[2]

One is tempted to linger among the Odontoglots, though time is pressing.
In no class of orchids are natural hybrids so mysterious and frequent.
Sometimes one can detect the parentage; in such cases, doubtless, the
crossing occurred but a few generations back: as a rule, however, such
plants are the result of breeding in and in from age to age, causing all
manner of delightful complications. How many can trace the lineage of
Mr. Bull's _Od. delectabile_--ivory white, tinged with rose, strikingly
blotched with red and showing a golden la