We enter the second of the range of greenhouses, also devoted to Odontoglossums, Masdevallias, and “cool” genera, as crowded as the last; pass down it to the corridor, and return through number three, which is occupied by Cattleyas and such.  There is a lofty mass of rock in front, with a pool below, and a pleasant sound of splashing water.  Many orchids of the largest size are planted out here—­Cypripedium, Cattleya, Sobralia, Phajus, Loelia, Zygopetalum, and a hundred more, “specimens,” as the phrase runs—­that is to say, they have ten, twenty, fifty, flower spikes.  I attempt no more descriptions; to one who knows, the plain statement of fact is enough, one who does not is unable to conceive that sight by the aid of words.  But the Sobralias demand attention.  They stand here in clumps two feet thick, bearing a wilderness of loveliest bloom—­like Irises magnified and glorified by heavenly enchantment.  Nature designed a practical joke perhaps when she granted these noble flowers but one day’s existence each, while dingy Epidendrums last six months, or nine.  I imagine that for stateliness and delicacy combined there are no plants that excel the Sobralia.  At any single point they may be surpassed—­among orchids, be it understood, by nothing else in Nature’s realm—­but their magnificence and grace together cannot be outshone.

I must not dwell upon the marvels here, in front, on either side, and above—­a hint is enough.  There are baskets of Loelia anceps three feet across, lifted bodily from the tree in their native forest where they had grown perhaps for centuries.  One of them—­the white variety, too, which aesthetic infidels might adore, though they believed in nothing—­opened a hundred spikes at Christmas time; we do not concern ourselves with minute reckonings here.  But an enthusiastic novice counted the flowers blooming one day on that huge mass of Loelia albida yonder, and they numbered two hundred and eleven—­unless, as some say, this was the quantity of “spikes,” in which case one must have to multiply by two or three.  Such incidents maybe taken for granted at the farm.

[Illustration:  LOELIANCEPS SCHROEDERIANA.  Reduced to One Sixth]

But we must not pass a new orchid, quite distinct and supremely beautiful, for which Professor Reichenbach has not yet found a name sufficiently appreciative.  Only eight pieces were discovered, whence we must suspect that it is very rare at home; I do not know where the home is, and I should not tell if I did.  Such information is more valuable than the surest tip for the Derby, or most secrets of State.  This new orchid is a Cyrrhopetalun, of very small size, but, like so many others, its flower is bigger than itself.  The spike inclines almost at a right angle, and the pendent half is hung with golden bells, nearly two inches in length.  Beneath it stands the very rare scarlet Utricularia, growing in the axils of its native Vriesia, as in a cup always full;