18 EEPOBT ON THE 



by Dr. Masters that these few remarks should be called an 

 address, but as I am not so accustomed to make addresses as my 

 friend Dr. Masters is, and as I have really never made anything 

 but a political address, I venture to confine myself to the word 

 " remarks," and I can only hope you will forgive their exceedingly 

 discursive and not very interesting nature. (" No, no," and 

 applause.) Now, ladies and gentlemen, the first business that we 

 have to-day is to read the communication from Professor 

 Reichenbach. This communication only arrived yesterday, and, 

 as I have not had time to read it over beforehand, perhaps you 

 will forgive me if I make any small mistakes. (Hear, hear.) 



The President then read the following communication from 

 Professor Keichenbach : 



I. ON PKOLIFEROUS ROOTS OF ORCHIDS. 



There have been various records of buds originated on roots 

 of Orchids, lately in the instances quoted by Messrs. Lendy and 

 Salter. 



I have long attached great interest to this case, though I 

 have made but few observations, only one plant having often 

 showed me this method of propagation. It is the Bird's-nest 

 Orchid (Neottia nidus avis], which very often perishes after having 

 flowered, while in other cases it produces fresh shoots from the 

 axils of certain sheaths. In other cases it brings a fresh plant 

 at the very top of a root fibre. I saw this in 1849, when I 

 observed the fact at Tharand. I learned very late it had been 

 observed before by J. P. E. Vaucher in 1841 ; after Vaucher 

 and me it was seen by Irnisch, Prilleux, Hofmeister, who got it 

 from me ; then it was formally denied by Drude and re-observed 

 and neatly described by Eugen Warming, the excellent Scandi- 

 navian botanist. 



The second case was observed in my Phalanopsis deliciosa, 

 gathered in 1843 by Zollinger. My specimen shows a young 

 plant on a root having just emitted such a small rootlet of its 

 own as described by Mr. Salter. The specimen can be seen in 

 my herbarium. 



The third case is a sad one. A Cyrtopodium (if I remember 

 rightly a Savannah plant from Venezuela) gave a fine shoot from 

 a root in Consul Schiller's collection, under Mr. Schmidt's able 

 management, I believe, in 1867. I watched it carefully. Finally 

 a young assistant gardener broke it accidentally and threw the 



