AprIL, 1914.) THE ORCHID. REVIEW. 99 
about, though whether they will follow it is another matter. “If you have 
a number of plants which look all alike with respect toa certain character 
—say that of a spotless white flower—and if this character be one which you 
have striven to produce and wish to perpetuate, do not treat the plants as 
a mob—the writer seems to imply that you have been doing this— 
“treat them as individuals. Save seeds from plants which have been self- 
fertilised ; keep and sow the seed separately from each plant, raise a dozen 
or more from each of these families. If they all come true to whiteness 
your additional labour has been wasted; but if only some come true you 
have the satisfaction of knowing that.you have spared yourself several 
tedious years’ work in ‘selection.’”’ And the writer adds: ‘‘ Not alittle of 
the selection that goes on in nurseries is nothing but an endeavour to get 
chance to do more slowly what the breeder may (the italics are his) be able 
to do swiftly for himself. 
This advice is hardly necessary in the case of the Orchid breeder, who 
certainly treats his plants individually in the matter of crossing, and what 
he chiefly wants to find out is how to obtain the qualities that he desires to 
perpetuate without introducing the undesirable ones also present in the 
parents that he uses. It is here that Mendelism fails him. In short, there 
is no royal road tosuccess. ‘‘ If you seek to combine two different characters 
possessed by two individuals,” the writer continues, ‘‘ and if both characters 
fail to appear in the first generation, you have good reason to hope to get them 
back in the second.” This is called the ‘‘ Mendelian paradox,” and the 
breeder will doubtless make a note of it. We hope he will now make a few 
more experiments in self-fertilisation, though we confess it is for a some- 
what different reason. 
pan ROOMS 
ODONTOGLOSSUM CRISPUM WITH ANTHER-BEARING PETALS AND LIP.—A 
very remarkable if not absolutely unique peloria of Odontoglossum crispum 
is sent by Messrs. Charlesworth & Co., Haywards Heath. It is of the 
Lady Jane type, and the spike bears eleven not fully developed flowers, but 
the remarkable thing is that all the petals and lips bear an additional 
anther, or at all events a pair of pollinia, for all are borne in a pair of small 
parallel sacs close to the apex. None of them have the stipes and gland, 
showing that the supernumerary organs belong entirely to the staminal 
whorl. Again, the column is normal, with its pair of wings and the normal 
anther and pollinarium. The petals, as already remarked, are of the Lady 
Jane type, und bear a zone of elongated brown blotches on the upper half, 
while the sepals are generally unblotched. The lip is also dwarfed, and 
bears the usual crest, the additional anther being placed in front of this. 
It will be interesting to see what the next flowers are like. - R.A.R. 
