Early in the nineteenth century, a British explorer William Swanson shipped a cargo of tropical plants from Brazil, which he had wrapped in other tropical plants with thick stems and masses of leaves. Some of these packages found their way to a passionate plant enthusiast called Cattley. Out of sheer curiosity, Cattley took some of the plants that had been used as packaging material into his greenhouse and was amazed when they produced their first flowers in November 1818. The pink-flowering orchid became a sensation. Dr John Lindley (1795-1865), the "father of orchid cultivation", named it Cattleya in honour of Mr Cattley and, on account of its attractive labellum, gave it the full name of Cattleya labiata. No other plant brought back to Europe from anywhere by travellers or missionaries had ever had such an impact, not even Bletia verrecunda from the Bahamas, the first tropical orchid to flower in Europe in 1733. The Cattleya hybrids are  now perhaps the best known of all the corsage orchids, and easily grown by most amateurs.