SEPTEMBER, 1914.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 269s 
been successfully formulated can hardly be wondered at by anyone who is- 
acquainted with the extent of the task, and can appreciate the difficulties. 
with which experiments of this class have to contend.” 
We now return to the forms of Cattleya Sybil seen in our illustration;. 
which contain the qualities of three distinct species. The mother, C. 
Dowiana, is a pure species, hence the embryo cells from which they were 
derived were uniform in character, and the diversity must have come from: 
the pollen cells of the other parent, C. iridescens, in which C. bicolor and: 
C. Eldorado are combined. CC. Eldorado belongs to the same section as 
C. Dowiana, and hence may be said to possesses many similar though not 
identicai qualities. The two agree in having clavate pseudobulbs with a 
single erect leaf, and an entire lip with large convolute side lobes (as in figs. 
I, 2, and 6), but they differ in colour and in numerous other small details. 
C. bicolor, on the other hand, has slender elongated pseudobulbs with two 
spreading leaves, and a lip entirely destitute of side lobes, and hence has 
many different qualities from both. It may be said to have broken away 
from the main Cattleya stem at a much earlier period. Figures 3, 4, 5 
and 7 approach this grandparent in general character, but differ in having 
small auriculate side lobes, in fact the reversion, as in the case of other 
secondary hybrids of C. bicolor, is not complete. Blending is equally 
obvious as regards colour, and in scarcely any case is reversion complete, 
though no. 4 almost reproduces the colour of C. Dowiana in the sepals and 
petals, but not in the lip. 
In short, of unequal blending and quantitative differences in the factors 
there is plenty of evidence, as is invariably the case, and it illustrates how 
new characters arise by crossing, and give increased facilities for selection 
and improvement, which is the raison d’étre of all hybridisation as practised. 
in gardens. 
ONCIDIUM TENUE.—Several of the Central American Oncidiums seem: 
to be very imperfectly known. Oncidium tenue flowered in the garden of: 
the Horticultural Society as long ago as November, 1847, and was described 
and figured by Lindley (Journ. Hort. Soc., iii. pp. 76, 77), but since then it 
seems to have been almost lost sight of. Now, however, a plant has 
flowered in the Kew Collection, and although there is no record of its- 
origin it agrees with the original specimen preserved in Lindley’s Herbarium. 
This original plant is said to have been received by the Horticultural 
Society from Hartweg, in February, 1841. Lindley remarked that the- 
species was remarkable for its tbin pseudobulbs, and that the flowers were 
not unlike those of Oncidium Suttonii in size and colour, being yellow, with. . 
brown bars on the sepals and petals, and that it was distinguished from Ov 
suave by its broader leaves and acutely triangular column-wings.—R.A.R. 
