164 ME. R. A. ROLFE ON 
are taken from Bentham and Hooker's * Genera Plantarum,' and 
are given to show the relative positions of the genera in the 
system of classification there adopted. 
The above diagram is extremely instructive, and fully bears 
out the analogy pointed out between this and the preceding case. 
We may consider existing hybrids first. 
The four genera Anectochilus, Hamaria, Dossinia, and Ma- 
codes belong to the tribe Neottie= ; and, though closely allied, 
they possess certain structural differences which have been used 
for generic distinction. An interesting point in connection with 
this group is that Hemaria has been crossed with each of the 
other three genera, Hemaria discolor, Lindl., being in each case 
one of the parents. In two of the cases it was the seed-parent ; 
and although particulars are not fully given in the third case, 
still I strongly suspect in this also it was the seed-parent. 
The three genera Cattleya, Lelia, and Sophronitis belong to 
Bentham's subtribe Lelie, and are confessedly closely allied ; 
but the structural differences are such as to preclude the idea of 
uniting them together. The former has four pollen-masses, the 
two latter have eight; and to give up the characters derived 
from the number of pollen-masses would be to disown one of 
the characters universally relied on for generic distinction. So 
important, indeed, has the character been considered, that Prof. 
Reichenbach, in the sixth volume of Walpers’s ‘Annales,’ reduced 
Cattleya and two other genera to Epidendrum, and Lelia and 
four others to Bletia, on these very grounds, yet left Sophro- 
nitis as distinct. Lately, in a recent issue of that splendidly 
illustrated work, ‘Sander’s Reichenbachia, he again inculcates 
the same views*. 
On the other hand, so many hybrids have been raised between 
Cattleya and Lelia, that Mr. Veitch, in the afore-mentioned 
papers, relying on this very fact and on the difficulty of saying 
to which of the two genera some of these hybrids should be re- 
ferred (and they have always been referred to one or the other, 
sometimes very arbitrarily), remarked that the distinction between 
Cattleya and Lelia “was confessedly an artificial one.” If we 
* "I have never endeavoured to thrust upon amateurs such undoubtedly 
necessary changes as the merging of the genus Cattleya into Epidendrum, or 
Lalia and Schomburgkia into the genus Bletia.”—Reichb. f. in Sander's Reichen- 
bachia, sub t. 25. 
