102 LHE ORGHID: REVIEW. [JuLy-Aucust, 1919. 
boundary, and they were called crispum varieties by default, though there 
was good reason to believe that some were secondary hybrids or hybrid 
reversions. : 
It was hoped that with the possibility of raising Odontoglossums by 
hand some of these difficulties would be cleared up, but the experiments 
have chiefly been made in other directions, and the best of these doubtful 
forms have again been used as parents with other showy species, and their 
offspring have naturally presented similar if not increased difficulties in 
classification. The parentage of several of the wild hybrids has indeed 
been confirmed by experiment, and much light has been thrown on the 
question by variation and reversion among hybrids of known parentage, 
but these results have not been recorded with the necessary exactness; in 
fact, reversions that are of no horticultural importance have a tendency to 
be lost sight of altogether. Some idea of the possibilities of the case may 
be formed by the way in which the interval between Odontoglossum and 
thequite distinct genus Cochlioda is being filled up by hybridisation, and 
yet the first of the series did not flower until fifteen years ago. One is 
tempted to wonder how these would have been classified had they appeared 
in nature, without any record of their origin. Students’of natural hybrids 
have some difficulties to overcome besides that of a correct nomenclature. 
The latter burning question is naturally among the points raised, and we 
welcome a desire for a nomenclattife as closely as possible in accord with 
the facts, though it is often difficult to carry into practice. It is known, for 
example, that Odontoglossum crispum crossed with O. Hunnewellianum 
gives the hybrid O. Adriane, and that the latter recrossed with O. crispum 
gives O. Fascinator, which has also been recognised among imported plants, 
yet the variation of O. Fascinator towards O. Adrianz on the one hand and 
towards O. crispum on the other, is such that one could not pick them out 
of a batch of imported plants with any degree of certainty. The same 
thing applies to O. mirum—O. Wilckeanum recrossed’ with crispum—and 
some other secondary hybrids of known origin. Such hybrids, when raised 
artificially, generally receive names in accordance with their parentage, 
whatever the amount of variation shown. And there are cases where the 
An alternative plan which has been suggested is to class all the hybr ids 
from any given two Species under a single name, but we do not think it 
