MarR.-APRIL, 1920.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 63 
by Mr. Oakes Ames; Geographical Distribution of Orchids, by Mr. E. H. 
Wilson; History of Orchid Cultivation in the United States, by Mr. 
W. A. Manda ; Collecting Orchids, by Mr. John E. Lager; and History of 
Orchids in England, by Mr. G. I’Anson. In connection with the Show a 
meeting is to be held on March 25th, to discuss the formation of an 
American National Orchid Society, a movement which has been contem- 
plated for a considerable time. It is hoped that the meeting will be fully 
representative, and that the necessary support will be forthcoming. There 
are many enthusiastic Orchidists in the States, but considerations of 
distance have rather handicapped the formation of a society, as’ we learn 
from an esteemed correspondent there. We hope to receive further 
particulars. 
CYMBIDIELLA HuMBLOTII.—It is interesting to note that a plant of this 
rare Madagascar Orchid is now throwing up a good spike at Kew. It is 
grown in ashallow. basket and suspended from the roof of the Nepenthes 
house. 
At a meeting of the Linnean Society to be held on May 6th next, at five 
p-m., a paper will be read by Mr. Edward J. Bedford, on British Marsh 
Orchids and their varieties, the paper being illustrated by coloured drawings 
and lantern slides. 7 
SOPHRONITIS CROSSES.—The object of raising Sophronitis hybrids is to 
combine the brilliant scarlet colour of S. grandiflora with the larger flowers 
and stronger habit of the other parent. Mr. J. M. Black, of the firm of 
Flory & Black, Orchid Nursery, Slough, who has had much experience 
with this particular group, both there and previously when with Mr. R. G. 
Thwaites, at Streatham, writes: ‘‘ We get a series of very beautiful tints in 
secondary Sophronitis hybrids, but we can hardly claim to have yet produced 
the scarlet Trianz or labiata. The variation in seedlings out of the same 
pod is almost endless, and a curious fact about the plants is their 
strength. They are slow-growing for the first few years, and then they 
grow rapidly into big plants, when their quality can be fairly judged. 
They will throw up flowers on plants little larger than the Sophronitis 
parent, but this precocioushess should not be imposed upon, nor the results 
judged too hastily. We have plants as large and as strong as the Cattleya 
and Lelia parents, if not larger and stronger, and plants that have the 
intention of building up a physique like this will not flower with anything 
approaching their true character when very small, although the instinct to 
flower is there. If the quality is there it can be brought out by good 
culture, but some of them have lost a good deal of the original Sophronitis 
character, and mere size and strength will not compensate for this.” We 
