BIGENERIC ORCHID HYBRIDS. 167 
media, described many years ago, has recently been raised by 
the Messrs. Veitch, by crossing P. Aphrodite with P. rosea; and 
Cypripedium Morganie, raised between C. Stonei and C. super- 
biens, is so substantially similar to the wild C. Stonei, var. platy- 
tenium, that the latter is now supposed to be a natural hybrid 
between these two species. 
From the foregoing details we may make the following de- 
ductions; and these again indicate a method of treating these 
hybrids which seem to me at once unobjectionable in itself, 
and does not interfere with the existing classification of genera 
and species :— 
l. Hybridization may take place not only between distinct 
species, but also between distinct genera—or between plants so 
structurally different as to be usually regarded as such. 
2. These hybrids are generally of artificial origin, or accident- 
ally produced, and cannot be treated in the scheme of classifica- 
tion either as varieties, species, or genera. 
3. The possibility of hybridization taking place between species 
hitherto considered as distinct does not necessarily prove them to 
be merely forms of the same species. 
4. The occurrence of a hybrid between two structurally dif- 
ferent genera does not prove the necessity of uniting them in 
one; nor can such hybrids be arbitrarily referred to either of the 
parent genera. f 
5. Species, and genera too, will always have to be dealt with 
in the scheme of classification according to their structural 
peculiarities and differences, without reference to the possibility 
of hybridization taking place between them. 
It is therefore clear that hybrids, whether bigeneric or other- 
wise, should be dealt with on their own merits, and named in such 
a way as to avoid all confusion between them and existing species 
and genera. In the case of species the common practice has 
been to give to a hybrid a new specific name, followed by a “ x , 
to indicate the hybrid origin of the plant. Thus Cypripedium 
Harrisianum x is a hybrid raised from C. villosum crossed with 
C. barbatum ; though, to my mind, a name indicating at once its 
hybrid origin and parentage, as C. barbato-villosum, would have 
been preferable. It the case of bigeneric hybrids it seems to me 
that the plan of compounding a name from that of the two 
parents should always be followed, as “Philageria X," a name 
invented by Dr. Masters for a hybrid raised by crossing Lapa- 
EEE 
