Norfolk Island

Orchids

Our Norfolk Island correspondent

writes as follows concerning the in

formation desired by Dr. G. H. Ver non, secretary of the Thursday Island and Torres Strait branch of the Royal

Geographical Society of Australasia,

regarding orchids on N. I.;

I believe there are orchids on the island, lost in the bush that clothes the slopes of our solitary “mountain”—one thousand and forty magnificent feet high—but I have not seen them, nor do I know if they are rare of unique. I will find out what I can, however, and let you have the result.

At the show the other day there was a beautiful creature—imported, though, I fancy, and possibly, quite common wherever it came from. It was a single, fleshy, scarlet petal, about an inch and a half wide by two inches long, threaded upon a long twisted green and orange stem that pierced it like a needle stabbed through a fragment of cloth. You probably know it, but I had never seen it before, and returned to it again and again.