48 REPORT ON THE 



make a departure on this occasion from precedents, and con- 

 sequently the committee have decided to award the three medals 

 in this way one medal to Professor Keichenbach for his very 

 eminent services in connection with scientific . Orchidology, 

 services of which Mr. Veitch has made an appropriate recogni- 

 tion, and services which everybody interested in Orchids feels 

 to have been of the most remarkable nature. The next medal we 

 thought we should like to award to a gentleman whose name is 

 immortalized in connection with many Orchids, which he was 

 the first to discover and introduce into this country. That 

 gentleman is the Kev. W. S. Parish, who was for a long time 

 a chaplain in the East India Service, stationed in Burmah, and 

 to whose discoveries we owe a large number of Burmese 

 Orchids. (Hear, hear.) The award in the case of the third 

 medal, I think, renders my mentioning the matter especially 

 appropriate on this occasion. We thought we could not more 

 wisely award it than to that very skilful hybridizer, Mr. Seden 

 (hear, hear) to whose skill we owe many of the beautiful 

 hybrids which have been produced in Mr. Veitch's nursery. Of 

 course, in awarding that last medal we did not at all overlook 

 the services rendered by a gentleman whom I saw in the room 

 a short time ago, I mean Mr. Dominy. (Hear, hear.) But we 

 had only three medals to award, and so, of course, we could not 

 award more than three, and we thought perhaps it would be 

 more judicious to award a medal to a soldier who is still fighting 

 in the ranks than to a veteran great as our debt of gratitude 

 is to him who has retired from them. (Applause.) 



Mr. VEITCH : May I say that, representing as I do the 

 Veitch family, nothing could gratify me more than that the 

 medal founded in our father's memory should have been given 

 to Seden. He entered my father's service twenty-five years ago, 

 and has been in our employ ever since, and a more zealous 

 foreman it would be impossible to find. I wish to bear testi- 

 mony to my pleasure that Seden should have the medal. 



Mr. B. T. LOWNE : I wish to point out that one of the 

 difficulties in rearing seedling Orchids arises, I believe, from the 

 fact that the pollen is only developed from the prolification of 

 the mother cells, after the pollinia are placed upon the stigma. 

 I think it is possible that the stimulation due to the presence of 

 the pollinia gives rise to the development of the capsule, even 

 whilst the ovales remain unimpregnate. 



