ee THE ORCHID REVIEW. [JaN.-FEB., 1919 
Ke | ODONTOGLOSSUM HUMEANUM. &| 
N interesting hybrid Odontoglossum is now flowering at Kew. As long — 
ago as May, 1899, we remarked in the Orchid Review (p. 277), in an 
account of the collection of F. H. Moore, Esq., Royal Infirmary, Liverpool, 
** With the hope of obtaining seedlings of Odontoglossum Humeanum, we 
then and there crossed and recrossed O. Rossii and maculatum, but the 
result of these crosses must be left for the present.” In March of the 
following year Mr. Moore wrote that the capsule of O. maculatum x 
Rossii had ripened, but that the strain had killed the plant. The seeds had 
been sown on three pots cf Odontoglossum maculatum. Somewhat later 
he again reported : ‘I am much delighted and somewhat astonished to find 
a nice batch of seedlings. Some of them are an eighth of an inch across, 
and resemble small Spanish onions”’ (O.R., viii. p. 240). In 1906 we hear 
of the cross again, in the collection of Sir Frederick Wigan, Bart., Clare 
Lawn, East Sheen, when the plant was six years old. It is remarked: 
(O.R., xiv. p. 299). ‘‘ Its progress has been rather slow, and as Mr. Moore’s 
house is scarcely suitable for Odontoglossums. and Mr. Young had kindly 
consented to take charge of the plant, it was moved to its new quarters this 
spring. It is mow suspended by the side of a vigorous plant of O. 
Humeanum, and on calling to see it we find that it is making a good 
growth, and, apart from accidents, its flowering is only a question of time, 
as Mr. Young is very successful with these dwarf Mexican Odontoglossums.” 
The following year Sir Frederick ‘Wigan died, and as a new home had to be 
found, Mr. Watson kindly undertook the care of it at Kew, with the hope 
of bringing it to the flowering stage. It progressed slowly in the 
Odontoglossum house for some years, when a suggestion was made to try 
it in the Intermediate house, where at last, when nineteen years old, it has © 
produced a spike of four flowers. And it has proved to be precisely what 
we anticipated. 
The origin of O. Humeanum has been long in dispute. It was originally 
described in 1876 (Gard. Chron., 1876, i. 170), and Reichenbach remarked : 
‘When I opered the box containing the peduncle and a leaf of this plant 
lately, by candlelight, I was immediately struck by the similarity of the 
flower to O. cordatum, though lip and bracts were those of O. Rossii.”’ 
The plant had flowered in the collection of Mr. Burnley Hume, and Mr. 
Harry Veitch, who sent the specimen, had afterwards written: “I could 
not help thinking, from the formation of the sepals and the colouring, it 
must be a natural cross with cordatum.”  * 
_ Three years later Reichenbach described an Odontoglossum received 
