Among the most glorious, rarest, and most valuable of Cattleyas is C.  Hardyana, doubtless a natural hybrid of C. aurea with C. gigas Sanderiana.  Few of us have seen it—­two-hundred-guinea plants are not common spectacles.  It has an immense flower, rose-purple; the lip purple-magenta, veined with gold. Cattleya Sanderiana offers an interesting story.  Mr. Mau, one of Mr. Sander’s collectors, was despatched to Bogota in search of Odontoglossum crispum.  While tramping through the woods, he came across a very large Cattleya at rest, and gathered such pieces as fell in his way—­attaching so little importance to them, however, that he did not name the matter in his reports.  Four cases Mr. Mau brought home with his stock of Odontoglossums, which were opened in due course of business.  We can quite believe that it was one of the stirring moments of Mr. Sander’s life.  The plants bore many dry specimens of last year’s inflorescence, displaying such extraordinary size as proved the variety to be new; and there is no large Cattleya of indifferent colouring.  To receive a plant of that character unannounced, undescribed, is an experience without parallel for half a century.  Mr. Mau was sent back by next mail to secure every fragment he could find.  Meantime, those in hand were established, and Mr. Brymer, M.P., bought one—­Mr. Brymer is immortalized by the Dendrobe which bears his name.  The new Cattleya proved kindly, and just before Mr. Mau returned with some thousands of its like Mr. Brymer’s purchase broke into bloom.  That must have been another glorious moment for Mr. Sander, when the great bud unfolded, displaying sepals and petals of the rosiest, freshest, softest pink, eleven inches across; and a crimson labellum exquisitely shown up by a broad patch of white on either side of the throat.  Mr. Brymer was good enough to lend his specimen for the purpose of advertisement, and Messrs. Stevens enthusiastically fixed a green baize partition across their rooms as a background for the wondrous novelty.  What excitement reigned there on the great day is not to be described.  I have heard that over 2000l. was taken in the room.

Most of the Cattleyas with which the public is familiar—­Mossiae, Trianae, Mendellii, and so forth—­have white varieties; but an example absolutely pure is so uncommon that it fetches a long price.  Loveliest of these is C.  Skinneri alba.  For generations, if not for ages, the people of Costa Rica have been gathering every morsel they can find, and planting it upon the roofs of their mud-built churches.  Roezl and the early collectors had a “good time,” buying these semi-sacred flowers from the priests, bribing the parishioners to steal them, or, when occasion served, playing the thief themselves.  But the game is nearly up.  Seldom now can a piece of Cat.  Skinneri alba be obtained by honest means, and when a collector arrives guards are set upon the churches that still keep their decoration.  No plant has ever been found in the forest, we understand.