ORCHIDS AND EVOLUTION COSTANTIN. 351 



number 600 was obtained only by a statistical method which may be 

 considered too restrictive, for it was employed by Mr. Rolfe with 

 a view to simplifying a study rendered every day more difficult by 

 new creations. He has adopted the strict rule of giving only a single 

 name, the oldest, to all the crosses between any two species. But 

 this rigid rule, which is quite practical for purposes of taxonomic 

 study, takes no regard of the fact, which is nevertheless very im- 

 portant and well established, that the offspring obtained from the 

 same parents at the same period or at successive periods are often 

 very different, and especially that if an inverse crossing is made very 

 dissimilar hybrids result. The Cypripediums being hermaphrodite, 

 either of the species may be taken as father or as mother. If the rule 

 of nomenclature just cited is not admitted, it is not 600 but 1,500 

 hybrids that must be listed for this single genus. One can under- 

 stand how Lindley said, when Calanthe X Dotninyi appeared, '' You 

 will drive botanists mad." Never until then had the words of Bailey 

 been so true : '' The garden has always been the bugbear of the 

 botanist." It must be remembered that the artificial creations thus 

 obtained among the orchids, and especially among the lady's-slippers, 

 have characters which must be emphasized, which are different from 

 those usually seen in chrysanthemums or roses. The immense number 

 of varieties that are known as belonging to these two floral types 

 differ from one another by peculiarities which are often infinitesimal, 

 slight variations in tints, habit, etc. When examined as a whole in 

 an exhibition there is an impression of continuity. It is seen, how- 

 ever, that by the accumulation of these slight differences extreme 

 types altogether different are obtained. Upon inspection of the 

 Cypripedium hybrids the impression is different; the plants that 

 have been crossed with one another are so unlike — separated by so 

 many diverse characters — that their offspring give the impression 

 of autonomous beings which are radically different from anything 

 before known and give one the idea of new beings created in every 

 part, for whose analogue the whole world might be searched in vain. 

 The hybrids thus fashioned by man's genius have every appearance 

 of new species; and by the processes of cultivation and multiplication ^ 

 which consist in dividing the rhizomes, once the being has been 

 created by a stroke of a magic wand, we are assured of keeping it 

 indefinitely with all the characters which have struck us at the time 

 of their first appearance. 



When one of these prodigies is offered in the salesrooms of the 

 London auctioneers there is a contest among its fond admirers for 

 the possession of a gem hitherto unknown, and it is not unusual to see 

 new hybrids sold at absurd prices. For example, Cypriyedium 

 Thalia was sold for 300 pounds sterling ($1,500) and Cypripediiun 



