268 NATURAL SCIENCE. Oct., 1894. 



characters from the parental form, but after a time they "break" or 

 assume their proper character quite suddenly, and until this occurs 

 it is impossible to say whether they are valuable or not. Orchids owe 

 their vast variety chieiiy to unaided Nature, and the efforts of skilled 

 travellers who ransack their native habitats to find new ones. Of 

 late, however, much has been done by crossing allied species, and so 

 obtaining flowers embodying their united charms. Imported Orchids 

 form somewhat of a lottery, and many a prize has been acquired 

 unwittingly in the shape of a dormant pseudo bulb, costing a few 

 shillings, and fetching, when its true character has appeared in its 

 bloom, a handsome sum in guineas. Such a case occurred not long 

 since, when an orchid was put up in a thumb-pot, with a tentative 

 reserve of a few pounds, and was knocked down, after a spirited 

 competition, at one hundred and forty guineas. Such plants may, of 

 course, be new species, but usually they are varietal forms of well- 

 known ones, and are thus simply natural " sports " of precisely the 

 same character as those already described. 



Chas. T. Druery. 



