ese merits appeals to one or other of
orchid-growers. Many of the species which come from torrid lands,
indeed, are troublesome, but with such we are not concerned. The cool
varieties will do well anywhere, provided they receive water enough in
summer, and not too little in winter. I do not speak of the American and
Siberian classes, which are nearly hopeless for the amateur, nor of the
Hong-Kong _Cypripedium purpuratum_, a very puzzling example.

On the roll of martyrs to orchidology, Mr. Pearce stands high. To him we
owe, among many fine things, the hybrid Begonias which are becoming such
favourites for bedding and other purposes. He discovered the three
original types, parents of the innumerable "garden flowers" now on
sale--_Begonia Pearcii_, _B. Veitchii_, and _B. Boliviensis_. It was his
great luck, and great honour, to find _Masdevallia Veitchii_--so long,
so often, so laboriously searched for from that day to this, but never
even heard of. To collect another shipment of that glorious orchid, Mr.
Pearce sailed for Peru, in the service, I think, of Mr. Bull.
Unhappily--for us all as well as for himself--he was detained at Panama.
Somewhere in those parts there is a magnificent Cypripedium with which
we are acquainted only by the dried inflorescence, named _planifolium_.
The poor fellow could not resist this temptation. They told him at
Panama that no white man had returned from the spot, but he went on. The
Indians brought him back, some days or weeks later, without the prize;
and he died on arrival.

Oncidiums also are a product of the New World exclusively; in fact, of
the four classes most useful to amateurs, three belong wholly to
America, and the fourth in great part. I resist the temptation to
include Masdevallia, because that genus is not so perfectly easy as the
rest; but if it be added, nine-tenths, assuredly, of the plants in our
cool house come from the West. Among the special merits of the Oncidium
is its colour. I have heard thoughtless persons complain that they are
"all yellow;" which, as a statement of fact, is near enough to the
truth, for about three-fourths may be so described roughly. But this
dispensation is another proof of Nature's kindly regard for the
interests of our science. A clear, strong, golden yellow is the colour
that would have been wanting in our cool houses had not the Oncidium
supplied it. Shades of lemon and buff are frequent among Odontoglossums,
but, in a rough, general way