74 ORCHID HYBRIDS. 



ruling, the abandoning of my Odontoglossum study 

 was a cruel blow. Like this very day, when I rove 

 through the forest here or ride through the canons of 

 our Sierras, I tell at a glance which oak is of hybrid 

 nature, and figure on the percentage of strange "blood" 

 assimilated in a specimen before me: so with my Odoii- 

 toglossa. But years have passed over the lands; and 

 as the work which I may leave to-day at this place per- 

 haps has already found a fresh enthusiast in a home 

 with our antipodes ere the sheltering cover of hair has 

 left that forehead under which the battle between 

 thought and fact was fought: so little difference does it 

 make who solves these trifling problems of our universe. 

 The ant fills a place, arid its work is weighty with its 

 people. While one man is engaged to prove the extent 

 of this mundane sphere, another, his neighbor, is plant- 

 ing the potatoes which serve as his food; and both are 

 filling a high vocation. 



It would have been a pleasure for me to adopt Mr. 

 Rolfe's classification in the very form he offers it, if I 

 could have made it agree with the rules laid down for 

 my system. If Od. Andersonianurn and Ruckeriamum 

 are both hybrids from the crossing of gloriosum and 

 crispum, they should be ranged under the name claiming 

 priority, and, if need be, a variety established for the 

 later discovered cross. To class all the bastards of the 

 two species mentioned under the combination name of 

 Od. glorioso-crispum is conforming to rules of botanists, 

 and a good solution when dozens of established names 

 claim equality in rank with the first discovered natural 

 hybrid. But we can not adopt such course in one in- 

 stance, if in every other we simply refer every additional 

 hybrid to the name established long since. That stands, 

 and is understood to be the result of the parents given 



