14 



The Weekly Florists^ Review^ 



Apbil 18, 1912. 



SEASONABLE NOTES. 



Orchids from Seed. 



Spring is the season par excellence 

 for sowing orchid seeds. March, April 

 and May are the best months. During 

 winter they do not start well, and dur- 

 ing the hot summer months the per- 

 centage of germinations is much less 

 than in spring. The prevailing idea 

 that it is difficult to raise orchids from 

 seeds has been long ago exploded. Of 

 course, they cannot be raised in the 

 ifame easy manner as asters, salvias and 

 stocks, or even begonias and gloxinias. 

 The raising of seedling orchids in 

 Europe has now become a tremendous 

 industry and the leading orchid firms 

 there carry in stock far more hybrids 

 than forest-collected plants. Dozens 

 of houses are devoted to seedling rais- 

 ing, and the seedling plants are offered 

 for sale in large numbers before flower- 

 ing, the • parentage, of course, being 

 given. The need of raising seedlings is 

 becoming each year more apparent, as 

 the forest supplies of orchids are by 

 no means inexhaustible, and in the case 

 of the popular Cattleya labiata, unless 

 new localities are discovered where it is 

 to be found in abundance, a few years 

 will probably see it practically prohibi- 

 tive in price. 



Merits of Home-Raised Hybrids. 



There is one good feature about or- 

 chids raised from seed at home; they 

 have greater vigor than the collected 

 plants, provided, of course, that care is 

 t%ken in selecting vigorous seed-produc- 

 ing parents, which also are floriferous. 

 Again, the home-raised hybrids in many 

 cases make two growths and produce 

 two crops of flowers a year, and do not 

 need any resting period, as the forest 

 plants do. Of course, this resting 

 period, even in the case of collected 

 plants, is liable to be overdone, and 

 some growers are coming to the conclu- 

 sion that under artificial "cultivation 

 there is not so much need to rest the 

 plants as had been popularly supposed. 

 Then, again, many of these hybrids 

 give us flowers when we would other- 

 wise be without them (I am referring 

 now more particularly to cattleyas), 

 and they help in great measure to make 

 it possible to cut flowers every day in 

 the year. 



Crossing Good Varieties. 



The average time required to ripen 

 orchid seeds is a year. I have had 

 cattleyas ripen in eleven months and 

 sometimes it has taken fourteen or fif- 

 teen months, but a year is a fair aver- 

 age. Cypripediums do not take so long 

 and selenipediums require only one- 

 fourth the time of cattlevas and lajlias. 



Anyone intending to do orchid hy- 

 bridizing, particularly if he wants 

 plants which will be of value commer- 

 cially, should select the best types of 

 existing species. For instance, take a 

 fine form of Cattleya Trianse, labiata 

 or Schroederse, and either cross it with 

 its own pollen or use pollen from some 

 other plant which is extra fine and 

 which may improve the color, lengthen 

 the stem or add beauty to the general 

 outlines of the flowers. A point to be 

 remembered is that usually the seed- 

 lings approximate the seed-producing 

 parent in growth and habit, but are 

 more likely to have flowers resembling 

 the pollen parent. 



It would seem to be a good business 

 venture to raise Cattleya labiata in 

 quantity from seed, as the prospect is 

 that prices will soon be double what 

 they are today, and buyers would be 

 willing, or should be willing, to pay 



better prices for vigorous home-raised 

 seedlings than for dried up forest 

 plants, provided, of course, that they 

 could have a reasonable assurance that 

 they were buying a good type. I have 

 referred especially to cattleyas so far, 

 as they are the predominant orchids in 

 America, just as the more beautiful, if 

 less gaudy, odontoglossums are in 

 Europe, but such cypripediums as in- 

 signe, Sanderee, and others which might 

 be named, carrying big, bold dorsal 

 sepals and of pleasing colors, would be 

 in great demand were they procurable 

 in quantity. 



Sowing the Seed. 



Orchid seed is fine and dustlike. It 

 is estimated that a cattleya pod will 

 contain a quarter of a million or more 

 seeds. As soon as ripened and shaken 

 out, they should be sown, but I have 

 kept seeds for six months and had them 

 grow well, and there are also on the 

 market special pollen tubes which will 

 keep pollen fresh for fertilizing pur- 

 poses for from nine to twelve months, 

 so we can always be sure of having 

 suitable pollen without having to re- 

 move it from the flowers when to be 

 used. A common plan is to scatter or- 

 chid seeds on the tops of pots contain- 

 ing growing plants, if the soil is not 

 mossy or scummy on the surface, and 

 sometimes a fair germination may be 

 secured in this way. I have seen quan- 

 tities of young cattleya and cypripe- 

 dium seedlings start on the sides of the 

 pots in some cases. 



The best method, however, is to have 

 a case with a hinged cover, which can 

 be tilted or thrown back at will. Make 



Louis J. Reuter, at Seen by a Westerly Newspaper Cartoonist. 



