Orchids for everyone . the beautiful rose-purple veinings on the whiteground of the upper sepal make it very attractive, and the petals,deflexed and then upturned at the tip, moustache fashion, give theflower an interesting appearance. These are pale green withpurple veins and have black hairs along the margin. The lip isbrownish green with purple veins. For many years C. Fairrieanumbecame rarer and rarer in cultivation and its rarity, the absence ofimportations or knowledge of its habitat, together with the factthat the hybrids derived from it were of great value, all lent awonderful interest
Orchids for everyone . the beautiful rose-purple veinings on the whiteground of the upper sepal make it very attractive, and the petals,deflexed and then upturned at the tip, moustache fashion, give theflower an interesting appearance. These are pale green withpurple veins and have black hairs along the margin. The lip isbrownish green with purple veins. For many years C. Fairrieanumbecame rarer and rarer in cultivation and its rarity, the absence ofimportations or knowledge of its habitat, together with the factthat the hybrids derived from it were of great value, all lent awonderful interest to the species. At last, just when hybridistsseemed to have given up all hope of ever receiving imported plants,and when the few living cultivated plants were beyond price, thespecies was rediscovered, importations followed each other, and nowC. Fairrieanum is found in almost every collection and in somequantity. In 1857 flowers of C. Fairrieanum were sent to Kewfrom a garden in Somersetshire, and also from Mr Parkers. L^LIO-CATTLEYA WELLSIANA. THE MOST USEFUL ORCHIDS 65 Nursery at Upper Holloway, and in October of the same year aflowering plant was exhibited before the Royal HorticulturalSociety by Mr Fairrie, of Aigburth, Liverpool. Dr Lindleydescribed the species and named it after Mr Fairrie. It wassupposed that all the plants thus represented had been importedfrom Assam and offered with other Orchids at one of the sales atStevens Rooms. It is also stated that M. Van Houtte receivedsome plants from Bhotan, In 1880 the Messrs Veitch exhibiteda plant before the Royal Horticultural Society and gained a FirstClass Certificate for it. From that time onwards practically nothingwas heard of C. Fairrieanum until almost half a century hadelapsed since its introduction, and then, in 1905, some plants weresent to the Calcutta Botanic Gardens, and others eventuallyreached Kew. Many were the rumours concerning a re-discoveryof C. Fairrieanum, and the Orchid world was in a state of exci
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1910
