‘SEPTEMBER, 1914.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 267° 
lobes of the lip yellow, the isthmus deep chrome yellow, and the front lobe 
crimson shading to rose. 
No. 6 approaches no. 1 in shape, and has pale lilac rose sepals and: 
petals, and an entire lip, with very large yellow throat, without red veining,. 
and a broad dark purple-crimson margin, narrowing off at the sides. 
No. 7 approaches 5.in shape, but has more spreading sepals, these and. 
the petals being lilac-purple, while the lip has rose-coloured side lobes, a 
dull yellow isthmus, and an intense crimson-purple front lobe. 
It will be noticed that the yellows in the figure generally come out 
darker than the purples, but this is a well-known difficulty in photographing 
colours, unless a yellow screen and an isochromatic plate are used. 
This remarkable range of variation recalls the five secondary hybrid 
Odontiodas raised by Messrs. Charlesworth & Co., which were described at 
pp. 106, 107 of our April issue, though we were not able to illustrate them 
graphically by photographs. Of course the phenomenon is nothing new, 
for it was observed and recorded in the case of Leliocattleya fausta, the 
earliest secondary hybrid Orchid raised by hand, some of which Mr. Seden 
remarked most resembled their grandparents (see O.R., xvill. p. II). It is- 
to-day a commonplace of hybridisation, and it stands in the strongest 
contrast with the comparative uniformity seen among primary hybrids. It 
is, in fact, a phase of reversion, and illustrates well what has been termed 
the “ permanence of specific character ” in organisms. 
Species, as is well known, reproduce themselves true from seed, and the 
reason is because the pollen cells and embryo cells, from the union of 
which the new generation arises, are alike, hence no new and disturbing 
element is introduced. Hybridisation consists in the union of the unlike,. 
the pollen cells of the male parent having different specific characters from, 
those of the female, and the amount of difference depends on the degree ot 
affinity between the parents. A hybrid combines two distinct ancestries,. 
and consequently contains diverse elements, which seldom form a perfect 
blend. There is usually more or less incompatability, resulting in a mosaic 
Structure, in which the indvidual cells are not homogeneous. When such. 
a hybrid forms its reproductive cells, pollen and ovules, the same diversity 
obtains, hence the polymorphism seen among secondary hybrids. The one 
is the direct result of the other. 
We now come to the well-known property of o 
own kind, which is summed up in the phrase, “like produces like,” and, as 
hybrids are seen to form an exception, we are led to enquire as to what 
are the conditions under which the reproductive cells obtain their own: 
distinctive qualities. We cannot go into the mysteries of ordinary cell 
formation, suffice it to say that by a complicated process the nucleus of 
the cell divides, giving rise to two exactly similar daughter nuclei, which 
rganisms to produce their 
