72 CYPRIPED1UM. 



a plant of delicate constitution in the orchid houses of Europe, while 

 its progeny, G. Sedenii and its allies are among the most robust. 

 C. Fairieanum seems to be one of the most difficult species to cultivate 

 successfully, but C. vexillarium and C. Arthurianum, of which it is 

 the pollen parent, are among the easiest. 



The remarkable hybrids raised by Dominy and Seden soon afforded an 

 incentive to other operators ; their results, subject to the restrictions to 

 be presently noticed, are duly recorded in the following pages. It is, 

 however, only within the last few years that the raising of hybrid 

 Cypripedes has become general among professional and amateur culti- 

 vators. That they have been more attracted to Cypripedium than to 

 any other genus in the great orchidean family is doubtless due to 

 several causes, the foremost being the comparative facility with which 

 seed capsules are produced by cross fertilisation, the greater proportion 

 of the mature seed that germinates, and the shorter period of time 

 that elapses between the germination of the seed and the flowering of 

 the plant. So generally is muling among Cypripedes now practised, not 

 only in Great Britain, but also on the Continent of Europe, and in 

 the United States of America, that there is scarcely an orchid collection 

 of note in which a batch of seedlings may not be found ; such at least 

 may be said to be the general rule but there are many prominent 

 exceptions; it has thence resulted that the actual number of hybrid 

 Cypripedes has become practically indefinite.* 



As the paramount object of hybridisation is the production of new and 

 improved races, it is unavoidable that when the progenies so raised have 

 become very numerous, they can be otherwise than of a very mixed 

 character, which must ultimately lead to a Process op Selection amongst 

 the individuals, by which the more perfect forms with the most attrac- 

 tive colours will be retained, and the inferior forms with unattractive 

 colours will be rejected. JSTo horticulturist of any experience doubts for 

 a moment that the process of selection will eventually be far more 

 rigorously applied to the artificially-raised seedlings of Cypripedium than 

 hitherto, and that most of the unattractive and uninteresting forms that 

 now encumber the stages of many orchid houses are doomed to disappear 

 before the exigences of a higher standard of excellence than they 

 represent. 



In dealing with the numerous hybrids that have flowered up to the 

 time of going to press, we have found it impracticable to give descrip- 

 tions of all that have been announced. We have, therefore, confined 



* It cannot fail to be evident to every unprejudiced reader that as the raising of hybrids is a 

 purely horticultural process, the naming of them cannot be said to come exclusively within the 

 province of the botanist, and that the pseudo-latin names so much in vogue, together with the 

 cumbrous Greek compounds intelligible to none but the initiated, are as much out of place when 

 applied to hybrid Cypripedes as they would be if applied to hybrid Roses, etc. A simple 

 English nomenclature, avoiding personal names except those of the highest distinction or 

 derived from mythology, literature and fiction, is aliko dictated by common sense and practical 

 convenience. 



