EXPERIMENTS IN HYBRIDISATION, &c. 105 
(3) Z. Mackayi 9 crossed with O. grande ¢. 
(4) Z. Mackayi ? crossed with O. bictonense ¢. 
(5) Z. Mackayi ? crossed with Lycaste Skinnerii, all by Messrs. 
Veitch, produced a few seedlings of each cross, all of which flowered 
pure Z. Mackayi. 
(6) Z. Mackayi ¢@ crossed with Oncidium unguiculatum ¢, by Rev. 
F. D. Horner, of Burton-in-Lonsdale, and by a Florentine hybridist, 
both produced Z. Mackayi, pure and simple, four plants being raised. 
(7) Epidendrum x O’Brienianum ¢ crossed with Dendrobium crystal- 
linum 2, by Mr. Statter, of Stand Hall, near Manchester, produced a 
large number of plants, all of which flowered EK. x O’Brienianum. 
(8) Phragmipedilum longifolium Hartwegii 2 crossed with Paphio- 
pedilum Stonei ¢, by Mr. R. M. Grey, for Mr. Graves, of Orange, Mass., 
produced a plant which flowered Phrag. longifolium Hartwegii. 
(9) Phrag. x Sedenii ¢ crossed with Paph. Stonei ¢, by Mr. Statter, 
produced a plant which flowered Phrag. x Sedenii (as far as one could 
determine from a somewhat imperfect first flower). I also have an un- 
flowered plant of the same cross, which is undoubtedly a Phragmipedilum 
in its habit of growth, and form and colour of leaves. 
(10) Lelia harpophylla @ crossed (curiously enough) with Paphio- 
pedilum villosum ¢ (belonging to a distinct swb-order) and the reverse 
cross, viz.— 
(11) Paph. villosum ¢? x Lelia harpophylla 3, both raised by a well- 
known expert hybridist in the North of England, have produced plants, 
yet unflowered, which I have seen and examined, and which, in each case, 
have the habit and characteristics of their respective seed-parents, No. 10 
being evidently true Lelia and No. 11 true Paphiopedilum. 
Here we have eleven distinct crosses between nine very distinct 
genera, all of which have produced “false hybrids,” reproducing the 
characters of their seed-parents absolutely unmodified by the so-called 
pollen-parents. Nor are these mere solitary exceptions, for as far as 
experiments have yet been made they seem to be the absolute rule 
with no exception ; in one case, as we have seen, no less than 300 plants 
were raised from one capsule, all with the same result. These curious 
crosses are evidently very different from the prepotent Epidendrum 
hybrids, for in the latter it was the pollen-parent that was prepotent, 
and all of them were slightly modified by the influence of the other 
parent, showing them to be true hybrids. But those now under con- 
sideration are evidently not true hybrids at all, showing no trace of one 
of the so-called parents. 
In the face of modern knowledge concerning the germ-cells and the 
inner processes of reproduction, it would be idle for us to assert that the 
seeds which produced these plants had ever been hybridised. They must 
‘therefore have been fertilised with their own pollen, or have reproduced 
themselves by parthenogenesis. After a lengthy correspondence and a 
careful sifting of the facts, I have come to the conclusion that in eight 
cases at least out of the eleven, self-fertilisation is quite out of the 
question, being practically impossible in the circumstances.* There 
* See Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. xxi. 1898, p. 477. 
