Note 9 — Chapter XII · THE VALLEY OF THE MAGDALENA
Reading edition
“The most magnificent sight,” he writes, “for even the most stoical observer, is the immense clumps of Cattleya Mendelii, each new bulb bearing four or five of its gorgeous rose-colored flowers, many of them growing in the full sun, or with very little shade, and possessing a glowing color which is very difficult to get in the stuffy hothouses where the plants are cultivated. Some of these plants, considering their size and the slowness of growth, must have taken many years to develop, for I have taken plants from the trees with five hundred bulbs, and as many as one hundred spikes of flowers, which, to a lover of orchids, is a sight worth traveling from Europe to see.”9