Odontoglossum schröderianum.

Ten ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.39 : 1
• published 1888
• Plate 145

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut — then, halfway, a line of Chinese poetry: how the ancients saw this same flower. After it, the flower's language, its season and homeland, its book; and at the end one line of classical prose — and a pair of eyes to take away.

1. 01

   First Look

   竖划三寸，当千仞之高；横墨数尺，体百里之迥。

   —— 南朝宋·宗炳《画山水序》

   A vertical stroke of three inches stands for a cliff of a thousand fathoms; a few feet of ink holds a hundred li.

   The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles in the upper half. Let the plant stand before you look for detail. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   Only the genus Odontoglossum is given; species-level names came later. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 14.0% of the sheet, foliage 0.2%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Orchids carry pseudobulbs or fleshy roots; six tepals, one modified into a lip that serves as a landing stage, and a column uniting stamens and pistil — a structure unique to the family.No colour group is recorded. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.

4. 04

   Composition

   Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. (about 1.39 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 16% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. Cover the margins with your thumb and the plate suffocates; uncover them and the flower breathes again.

5. 05

   Line and Colour

   In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. There is evidence on the back too: the plate mark pressed into the paper, the slight relief of the pigment, lines worn shallow in a later printing. If you mean to copy it: block in the broad shapes and colours first, detail last; lithographic softness comes from thin washes — two or three pale layers will get you close.

6. 06

   Poetic Resonance

   明朝端午，待学纫兰为佩。寻一首好诗，要书裙带。

   —— 《𣨼人娇·或云赠朝云》

   The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the corolla becomes its resting point.

7. 07

   Symbolism

   In China the orchid is the gentleman who blooms unseen; in Victorian Europe it was luxury and obsession, a single new species worth a fortune. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.

8. 08

   Season and Place

   Varies by genus: temperate terrestrials flower in spring and summer, tropical epiphytes almost year-round. Worldwide, richest on tropical mountains. Chinese cymbidiums come from the hills of the south. The year 1888 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Read the locality and the flowering season both with a discount: one is hearsay, the other a ten-day peak.

9. 09

   The Book and the Hand

   “Reichenbachia. Orchids” was drawn by Frederick Sander and published 1888-1894. This plate is Plate 145. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    释名（闲）、木香、香水兰、女兰、香草、燕尾香、大泽兰、兰泽草、煎泽草、省头草、都梁香、孩儿菊、千金草。气味（叶）辛、平、无毒。

    —— 本草纲目·兰草第九十三

    Confucius, finding an orchid flowering alone in a valley, is said to have composed the 'Lament for the Orchid'; in the Li Sao, orchids are worn as a girdle of virtue. You need not parse every word: take the line, and the flower acquires a second face.