THE ORCHID REVIEW. 247 
water liberally. Keep near the glass, but shade well, and gos perfectly 
free from thrip and green fly. If the tubers are large enough, it will be 
almost sure to flower. 
DISA x KEWENSIS SUPERBA. 
“TypicaL D. X kewensis was raised at Kew from D. grandiflora crossed 
with D. tripetaloides, and flowered in 1893. Two years later, it was 
crossed again with D. grandiflora, and the result is now in flower in the 
cool Orchid-house. As might be expected from the parents, this new cross 
has larger flowers and a sturdier habit than D. x kewensis, the flower 
being nearly twice as large. There are four flowers on a spike 20 inches 
high; the side sepals are 1} by 1 inch, rosy pink with a faint tinge of 
orange; the odd sepal or hood is 1 inch across, pale pink, conspicuously 
spotted with darker pink; petals green, with red spots. The name is a 
sufficient indication of the origin of the plant. There are two other 
secondary hybrid Disas, viz., D. x Diores, raised by Messrs. Veitch from 
D. X Veitchii (racemosa X grandiflora) crossed with grandiflora. It 
would have been better had this been named D. X Veitchii superba; the 
other is D. X Premier, the parentage of which is a little more complicated, 
its parents being D. x langleyensis and D. x Veitchii, so that its grand- 
parents were racemosa (2), tripetaloides, and grandiflora.”,—W. W. in Gard. 
Chron., 1900, xxvii., p. 54. , 
It is interesting to find that this new hybrid is such an improvement on 
D. X kewensis, but we cannot follow the line of argument adopted in justi- 
fication of the name. It would have been correct fora specially fine form of 
the original hybrid, but the new one is a secondary hybrid of distinct origin, 
and should have been named accordingly. The idea seems to be that when a 
hybrid is re-crossed with either parent, no new blood is introduced, and there- 
fore the offspring is only a variety of the hybrid parent. According to this, 
if D. X kewensis were re-crossed with D. tripetaloides, the offspring would 
also rank as a variety of D. kewensis. But the accepted custom of regarding 
such crosses as distinct is much more in accordance with fact. D. grandi- 
flora X tripetaloides is a primary hybrid, known as D. x kewensis, but the 
_ latter re-crossed with each parent would give two quite distinct secondary 
hybrids, and several’ similar cases are already known. Secondary hybrids 
derived from three species cannot be named on this principle, and those 
derived from only two species are as essentially distinct. A plant made up 
of 75 per cent. of A and 25 per cent. of B cannot possibly be identical with 
one in which the proportions are directly reversed, nor yet with one in which 
they are equal. D. X Watsoni would be a suitable name for the present 
ieee 
