The cult of the orchid has long had a peculiar fascination, and the possession of an orchid collection has been regarded as the hall-mark of respectability and affluence. Probably no other family of the vegetable kingdom is surrounded with so much romance. One well-known orchid firm in England not long ago employed experienced travellers to explore the tropics, especially of America and Asia, for rare orchids, chartered ships for transporting them to England, and built a railway station adjoining spacious hot houses where special trains unloaded their precious cargo. It may not be easily credited in a country where orchids of one sort or another are found almost on every tree, that as much has been paid for a single orchid as would purchase a good-sized estate in Ceylon. In the tropics orchid-growing is capable of affording infinite pleasure, and need not by any means be regarded as the hobby of millionaires. Here in fact they often thrive better "on air," as on tree-trunks, than otherwise.
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