FORTUNES IN FLOWERS .

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5487, 21 March 1910, Page 4

FORTUNES IN FLOWERS .

The sudden fancy for carnations, which resulted recently in. £100 eing paid for a single plant, is not to bo compared with tho tulip mania hat broke out in Holland in the liddle or the seventeenth century Then, as much as £1000 was paid on several occasions for rare buiha. and one, the Semper -Augustus, uctuliy changed hands for £1700.. lVobably, this represents a record price for all time for a single plant, although in the early -days of tho orhid craze very large sums indeed /ere frequently paid, for new varieies. Baron Schroeder, for instance, reeivod £365 for a unique Cypripedium Sto'ni, while <aW>ther couKo.isseur aid £340 for a variety of Aerifies Lawrenccoe. Then, again, Mr Sander —the famous "Orchid King" of St. Albans— actually bought back for £200 a plant he had originally soul or two guineas. Another customer of his paid £100 for a bulb which flowered out into i new and elegant variety. Tho purchaser wade £800 on his purchase by dividing the plant and re-selling it to connoisseurs and dealers, y\r Sander himself giving 250 guineas for one piece, which he kept for hybridising. So late as 1892 the orchids at Blenheim sold for no less than .C! - -250, many single plants fetching ovr £100 apiece ; while Mr Bartlett, the late superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, sold for a very considerable sum c two stray orchids that had sprung up on a rubbish heap behind his house. These latter represented tw o distinct and new varieites, but no one knew how they came there, or whence, or when. It was supposed, however, hat ttoy arrived unnoticed amongst consignment of South American monkeys.