APRIL, 1914.] THE: GRCHID:.REVIEW. : 103, 
tended to confusion and led to many complaints. At length, in 188g, the 
R.H.S. appointed a Committee to draw up Rules of Nomemclature for the 
Society’s guidance. The Committee’s Repoit appeared in the following 
year, and included the provision that hybrids between species should be 
named in Latin, and those between varieties in the vernacular, with the 
recommendation that’ the Society should refuse to recognise names not in 
accordance with these rules. Whether the rules were adequate or not need 
not concern us, but it is a matter of history that they were very partially 
followed, and did little to check the rapidly growing confusion. 
The subject of Hybrid Nomenclature was again dealt with at the 
International Botanical Congress held at Vienna in 1905, when it was 
agreed that (a) Hybrids should be designated by a formula and a name, the 
formula to consist of the name of the two parents in alphabetical order, 
connected by the sign X, and the name to be subject to the same rules as. 
names of species, with the addition of the sign x before the name, and (6): 
that forms and half-breeds among cultivated plants should receive fancy 
names in common language. 
Secondary hybrids, it will be seen, were not provided for in either case, 
though they were responsible for the major part of the confusion, owing to 
the amount of variation and reversion they present—of which the case of 
Cypripedium aureum is a notorious example. This omission was provided 
for in the Orchid Stud-Book, which recommended (a) that hybrids between 
species should receive specific names, Latin or classical, consisting of a 
single word, (6) that hybrids between the same two species should be 
considered forms of one, any sufficiently distinct forms being distinguished 
by suitable varietal names, and (c) that secondary hybrids, 7.¢., those im 
which one or both parents are themselves hybrids, should as far as possible 
be dealt with under the preceding rules. There was a final recom- 
mendation, that ‘‘ existing names which do not conform to the same rules 
may be amended, the original idea, however, being conserved as far as 
possible,” which has led to much difference of opinion, and was discussed 
in detail at the following International Botanical Congress, held at Brussels. 
in 1910 (see O.R., xix. pp. 129-133, 322-325). 
At this Congress the subject of Horticultural Nomenclature was specially 
considered, and some modifications and additions made. It was, however, 
agreed (a) that hybrids between the same two species should bear the same 
specific name, (6) that names should be in Latin or in a common language 
written with Latin characters; (c) that ternary or more complex hybrids 
should follow the same rules as ordinary hybrids; (d) that “names of 
varieties should be expressed whenever possible by a single word, the use of 
three words, however, being permitted as a maximum”; and (e) that “‘ the 
same rule applies to the specific names of hybrids.” 
