-268 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [SEPTEMBER, 1623, 
‘widely spread, often without admixture, she has always seen it with spotted 
leaves. Mr. St. Quintin visited a marsh of 20 acres -at Champéry, in 
‘Switzerland, where Jatifolia grew in thousands, all with purple flowers and 
spotted leaves. To Continental botanists, to whom O. latifolia is familiar 
as an abundant and widely spread plant of Central, Southern and Northern 
Europe, rarely found with unspotted leaves, the suggestion that 0. latifolia 
L. had unspotted leaves, and that their spotted-leaved plant is a hybrid 
between two species (which are not infrequently both unknown in the 
‘regions in which it grows) must appear incredible. The specimen from 
Lewes exhibited by Mr. Dymes, and others found by me at Winchester at 
the end of June, where they were nearly as numerous as O. pretermissa 
appear to me to be identical with O. latifolia of Vence. No doubt hybrids 
-occur not infrequently in Britain between pretermissa and maculata, and 
have been mistaken for O. latifolia. Mr. Dymes tells me that he is not now 
so sure that all British Jatifolia are hybrids, and does not feel certain that 
he has examined seeds of the plant identified as true Jatifolia in Britain. 
Whether, in the case of critical species, the differences between the 
se2ds can b2 regarded as unanswerable evidence of specific differentiation, 
is open to doubt. The immense amount of patient labour and microscopical 
and technical skill involved in the comparison of the seeds leave considerable 
loopholes for error. The differences between the seeds of maculata, elodes 
(ericetorum) and O’Kellyi, which are so nearly allied as to be regarded by 
most modern botanists as varieties of the same species, appear to be as 
‘great as those between incarnata, pretermissa and purpurella. The evidence 
afforded by the seeds appears to: be rather confirmatory than of itself 
conclusive. 
Mr. Dymes’ suggestion that O. latifolia L. might be the parent of both 
his groups is perhaps nearer the truth than the supposition that it is an 
established hybrid species. I have seen abroad extremely rare isolated 
specimens amidst colonies of latifolia which were very like pretermissa in 
appearance, and which would, perhaps, if found in England, have been 
classed with pretermissa rather than with latifolia. It is quite possible 
‘that both these species are descended from a not very remote common 
ancestor. 
—0<—— 
GOMESA SCANDENS.—This species differs from others of the genus in its 
elongated stem and climbing habit. It was introduced from Brazil by 
M. Binot, in 1902, and flowered at Kew in July of the following year. 
“Owing to the elongation of the stems the pseudo-bulbs are distant from each 
-other from two to four inches, the intervening portion being clothed with 
ambricating distichous bracts. Wide, shallow pans, or teak-wood rafts, are 
‘preferable to pots for its cultivation. _ 
