_Odontoglossum vexillarium_ is brought from Colombia. There are two forms: the one--small, evenly red, flowering in autumn--was discovered by Frank Klaboch, nephew to the famous Roezl, on the Dagua River, in Antioquia. For eight years he persisted in despatching small quantities to Europe, though every plant died; at length a safer method of transmission was found, but simultaneously poor Klaboch himself succumbed. It is an awful country--perhaps the wettest under the sun. Though a favourite hunting-ground of collectors now--for Cattleyas of value come from hence, besides this precious Odontoglot--there are still no means of transport, saving Indians and canoes. _O. vexillarium_ would not be thought costly if buyers knew how rare it is, how expensive to get, and how terribly difficult to bring home. Forty thousand pieces were despatched to Mr. Sander in one consignment--he hugged himself with delight when three thousand proved to have some trace of vitality.
Mr. Watson, Assistant Curator at Kew, recalls an amusing instance of the value and the mystery attached to this species so late as 1867. In that year Professor Reichenbach described it for the first time. He tells how a friend lent him the bloom upon a negative promise under five heads--"First, not to show it to any one else; (2) not to speak much about it; (3) not to take a drawing of it; (4) not to have a photograph made; (5) not to look oftener than three times at it." By-the-bye, Mr. Watson gives the credit of the first discovery to the late Mr. Bowman; but I venture to believe that my account is exact--in reference to the Antioquia variety, at least.
The other form occurs in the famous district of Frontino, about two hundred and fifty miles due north of the first habitat, and shows--_savants_ would add "of course"--a striking difference. In the geographical distinctions of species will be found the key to whole volumes of mystery that perplex us now. I once saw three Odontoglossums ranged side by side, which even an expert would pronounce mere varieties of the same plant if he were not familiar with them--_Od. Williamsi_, _Od. grande_, and _Od. Schlieperianum_. The middle one everybody knows, by sight at least, a big, stark, spread-eagle flower, gamboge yellow mottled with red-brown, vastly effective in the mass, but individually vulgar. On one side was _Od. Williamsi_, essentially the same in flower and bulb and growth, but smaller; opposite stood _Od. Schlieperianum_, only to be distinguished as smaller still. But both these latter rank as species. They are separated from the common type, _O. grande_, by nearly ten degrees of latitude and ten degrees of longitude, nor--we might almost make an affidavit--do any intermediate forms exist in the space between; and those degrees are sub-tropical, by so much more significant than an equal distance in our zone. Instances of the same class and more surprising are found in many genera of orchid.