HYBRIDISATION. 91 



effected. This hypothesis and the structural evidence afforded by 

 intermediate forms that have appeared among importations of 

 geographically combined species have suggested that such forms are 

 of hybrid origin. Direct proof of the existence of natural hybrids 

 has now been afforded by identical forms artificially raised from the 

 same pair of species as those from which the supposed wild hybrids 

 were derived. 



The first hybrid so obtained was from PhaJcenopsis Aphrodite fertilised 

 with the pollen of P. rospa, the resulting progeny was identical with the 

 P. intermedia of Lindley. This Phalsenopsis first appeared as a solitary 

 plant in a consignment of P. Aphrodite, sent to us by Thomas Lobb 

 from the Philippine Islands in 1852 On its flowering in the following 

 year, Lindley suggested that it might l)e a natural liybrid between that 

 species and P. rosea ; * this hypothesis was verified by Seden's hybrid 

 which flowered for the first time in 1886. The shrewdness of Lindley's 

 suggestion is greatly enhanced by the fact that at the time it M'as made 

 no artificial hybrids were in existence, and wild ones do not appear to 

 have been previously suspected. The significance of Seden's hybrid was 

 two-fold, it was not only the first proof of the existence of wild hybrids 

 but the first artificially raised hyljrid in a genus ])roverbially difiicult 

 to cultivate. 



When the late Professor Keichenbach published a description of a 

 Masdevallia gathered by our collector Walter Davis on the lofty Andes 

 of Peru, under the name of M. splendida,j and later a second form 

 imported with it which lie named M. Parlatoreana,X he suggested that 

 both might be wild hybrids from M. Veitchiana and M. Barheana Avliich 

 occur together in that region, one being derived from the reverse cross 

 of the other. An experiment was made in our houses by crossing tlie 

 two supposed parent species both ways ; progenies were raised from both 

 crosses which on flowering proved identical with M. splendida and its 

 variety M. Parlatoreana, for variety it proved to be, intermediate forms 

 connecting the two occurring in both progenies. 



The next proof obtained was a very remarkable one, for it was 

 an artificially raised hybrid between Odontoglossum Pescatorei and Od. 

 triumphans, the first hybrid Odontoglossum raised by us, and so far 

 as we know the first to flower in England. It proved, however, to 

 be identical with the Od. excellens of Reichenbach, who supposed that 

 plant to be a natural hybrid between Od. Pescatorei and Od. tripudians; 

 the hypothesis of the second parent was sliown by the artificially raised 

 hybrid to be false. 



* Paxton's Flower Garden, III. p. 163. 



t Gard. Chron. IX. (1878), p. 49.S. 



:;:Id. XI. (1879), p. 172. 



