(_AN ODE TO THE MODERN FLORA._)
Oh, Flora, fair Goddess of Flowers, skies brighten, the gardens
are glowing,
And lo! 'tis the season of Flower Shows, when everything seems
"All-a-blowing!"
And what the dickens you've been up to with the dictionary, I'm
dashed if there's any possibility of knowing.
Talk about "Volapück." Why, it isn't a circumstance compared with
the floral goddess's crack-jaw.
I've been trying to read the account of a Flower Show to my wife.
Now, at patter-songs I've a slick tongue and slack jaw.
I can do "_John Wellington Wells_" pretty patly; but to read
through a horticultural article
Would give an alligator instantaneous tetanus; and of _meaning_
the words seem to have no particle.
I should like to be introduced, in its Bornean home, to the
glorious plant called Cælo Dyana.
But fancy a footman having to announce Madame SPATHOGLOTTIS
KIMBALLIANA!
Odont. Uro-Skinneri _sounds_ like something medical and epidermic,
but then we're informed that its sepals and petals
Are "reticulated in tender brown and broad rosy-mauve," which
immediately sends one "off the metals."
The Masdevallias may be a respectable family, though _I_ should
not care to marry into it,
But "the hybrid M. Mundyana representing M. Veitchii × M. Ignea"
(though "a wonderfully glowing orange" by all accounts),
sounds so exceedingly mixed and mongrel that I'd certainly
eschew it.
"A noble Catt: Gigas" _sounds_ rather aristocratic: "Catt:
Jacomb," I suppose, is a sort of a relative;
But Od. Citrosmum, sounds awfully odd, and is not _my_ notion of a
reassuring appellative.
And what _are_ you to make of Odont. crisp. Sanderæ, which,
whomsoever "Sanderæ" may be, _I_ don't want to "crisp"
him;
"A sport of nature unequalled" they call him, and no doubt his
_name_ is, for I can neither clearly articulate, stutter
or lisp him.
I've not a doubt that, whoever he is, he is probably liked and
considered by some a gem.
Gyp. Chamberlainianum has a political sound, and has a strong
savour of a floral Brummagem.
And then comes "Odont. vex. Bleui splendidissimum," which sounds
like an appeal for "_Two Lovely Blue Eyes_."
But if it means something entirely different, I shall hear it
without the smallest surprise.
In fact, looking further, I find, it's "an artificial hybrid from
Odont. vexillarium × Odont. Roezlii." That's a staggerer.
But Dend. phalænopsis Schroderæ Dellense is a still bigger
horticultural swaggerer.
O. Coradenei! likewise O. Crispum! I only wish that your
Godmother, Flora,
Would insist upon shorter and more intelligible names for her
modern offspring. By bright Aurora,
I can't go on worshipping at your floral shrine if the ritual is
polyglot gibberish, and what's more, I won't, Ma'am.
In the word (queerly spelt) of which you seem very fond, I
earnestly say, Flower Goddess, Odont. Ma'am!!!
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[Illustration: THE RACE FOR THE COUNTRY. WAITING FOR THE SIGNAL.
(_By Our Americanised Artist._)]
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