222 REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
NATURAL HYBRIDS OF THE CATTLEYA GROUP. 
By R. Auten Rours, A.L.S. 
THE object of the present paper is to collect together the natural hybrids 
of the Cattleya group, which have become rather numerous. The cause 
is not far to seek. Orchids are largely dependent upon insects for the 
fertilisation of their flowers, and as insects seldom confine their visits 
to one particular species, the pollen is very likely to be interchanged, 
and thus hybrids may occur wherever allied species grow together. 
In this group, as in some others, it is evident that hybridisation is largely 
a question of opportunity, for hybrids occur between some of the most 
structurally distinct species where they happen to grow intermixed, 
uniting the genera Cattleya, Lelia, and Brassavola. 
From a botanical standpoint it is important that these curious 
intermediate forms should be taken at their true value, for they destroy 
the natural limits of species, sections, and genera. And in practice we 
find that, unless their real origin has been recognised from the outset, 
they have been classed as anomalous forms, or varieties, or as distinct 
species, according to the amount of difference they present from existing 
forms. In several cases polymorphisms of the same hybrid have been 
classed as distinct speciés, and in at least one case, distinct hybrids have 
been included under the same name. 
The literature of the subject has become rather extensive, and is 
widely scattered in a multitude of books and publications ; and the object 
of this paper is to bring it into a single focus, and to present the subjects 
in their true relations as far as possible. 1 would emphasise the last 
remark, because several forms are only known to me from description, 
and finality is at present impossible, besides which our knowledge of the 
ceoeraphical distribution of some of the species is still very imperfect. 
HistroricAL SUMMARY. 
The earliest published allusion to the occurrence of a natural hybrid 
among Cattleyas that I have found occurs in 1856, by Lindley :—“ When 
Mr. Skinner last returned from Guatemala he brought with him a small 
packet containing the flowers of three different Orchids, which he found 
growing from the same stock. One was Cattleya Skinneri, another was 
a dark crimson variety of Hpidendrum Skinneri, the third, which was 
smaller than the first, but larger than the second, he suspected to be 
a hybrid between them” (“ Bot, Mag.” swb t. 4916). The plant figured 
as apparently identical with the third, flowered in the collection of 
J. D. Llewellyn, Esq., of Penllergare, and was named Cattleya Skinneri 
var. parviflora. It is pointed out that it is not the individual actually 
discovered by Skinner in 1854 or 1855 ; in fact it is thought to have been 
collected by Warscewicz ; and although Lindley was “ unable to recognise 
Pau j 
