ORCHIDS AND HYBRIDIZING. 223 
Messrs. Veitch point out that although few 
genera of plants are scattered so widely over 
the earth as Cypripedium, the species have 
withdrawn to narrow areas, often isolated, and 
remote from their kindred. Some are rare to 
the degree that we may congratulate ourselves 
upon the chance which put a few specimens in 
safety under glass before it was too late, for they 
seem to have become extinct even in this genera- 
tion. Messrs. Veitch give a few striking in- 
stances. All the plants of Cyp. Fatrieanum known 
to exist have sprung from three or four casually 
imported in 1856. Two bits of Cyp. superbiens 
turned up among a consignment of Cyf. barbatum ; 
none have been found since, and it is doubtful 
whether the species survives in its native home. 
Only three plants of Cyp.Marsterstanium have been 
discovered. They reached Mr. Bull in a miscella- 
neous case of Cypripediums forwarded to him by 
the Director of the Botanic Gardens at Buitzen- 
zorze, in Java; but that gentleman and his suc- 
cessors in office have been unable to find another 
plant. These three must have reached the 
Gardens by an accident—as they left it—presented 
perhaps by some Dutchman who had been tra- 
velling. 
Cyp. purpuratum is almost extinct at Hong 
