Dendrobiums are “warm” mostly; of the hot species, which are many, and the cool, which are few, I have not to speak here.  But a remark made at the beginning of this chapter especially applies to Dendrobes.  If they be started early, so that the young growths are well advanced by June 1; if the situation be warm, and a part of the house sunny—­if they be placed in that part without any shade till July, and freely syringed—­with a little extra attention many of them will do well enough.  That is to say, they will make such a show of blossom as is mighty satisfactory in the winter time.  We must not look for “specimens,” but there should be bloom enough to repay handsomely the very little trouble they give.  Among those that may be treated so are D.  Wardianum, Falconeri, crassinode, Pierardii, crystallinum, Devonianum—­sometimes—­and nobile, of course.  Probably there are more, but these I have tried myself.

Dendrobium Wardianum, at the present day, comes almost exclusively from Burmah—­the neighbourhood of the Ruby Mines is its favourite habitat.  But it was first brought to England from Assam in 1858, when botanists regarded it as a form of D.  Falconeri.  This error was not so strange as its seems, for the Assamese variety has pseudo-bulbs much less sturdy than those we are used to see, and they are quite pendulous.  It was rather a lively business collecting orchids in Burmah before the annexation.  The Roman Catholic missionaries established there made it a source of income, and they did not greet an intruding stranger with warmth—­not genial warmth, at least.  He was forbidden to quit the town of Bhamo, an edict which compelled him to employ native collectors—­in fact, coolies—­himself waiting helplessly within the walls; but his reverend rivals, having greater freedom and an acquaintance with the language, organized a corps of skirmishers to prowl round and intercept the natives returning with their loads.  Doubtless somebody received the value when they made a haul, but who, is uncertain perhaps—­and the stranger was disappointed, anyhow.  It may be believed that unedifying scenes arose—­especially on two or three occasions when an agent had almost reached one of the four gates before he was intercepted.  For the hapless collector—­having nothing in the world to do—­haunted those portals all day long, flying from one to the other in hope to see “somebody coming.”  Very droll, but Burmah is a warm country for jests of the kind.  Thus it happened occasionally that he beheld his own discomfiture, and rows ensued at the Mission-house.  At length Mr. Sander addressed a formal petition to the Austrian Archbishop, to whom the missionaries owed allegiance.  He received a sympathetic answer, and some assistance.