36 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [FEBRUARY, 1916. 
misunderstanding seems to have got abroad—at all events it has reached 
us by letter from three different sources—namely, that plants must be 
exhibited in London in order to be recorded; in one case it is asked 
whether it is correct that the names of plants not so exhibited cannot.be, 
recognised. It is not the fact ; indeed, the rules expressly provide that the. 
exhibition of a hybrid at a horticultural meeting does not secure publication. 
unless also properly recorded. A new hybrid is considered published 
when a name is given in accordance with the rules, together with the 
formula of parentage and a short description or figure, and is recorded in 
some work or periodical that is sold or circulated in the usual way. 
Publication in a dated horticultural catalogue is valid, but it is desirable 
that it should also be published in periodical horticultural journals. The 
idea, of course, is that the information should be accessible to those who 
desire it, and it expressly excludes the recognition of names recorded: 
without any information whatever, as is becoming too common. 
*- One correspondent, who is one of our most successful hybridists, remarks 
that there are so many opinions as to what is right that it is doubtful. 
whether the records can ever be got in proper order, and the mistake has 
been that the rules were not consistently followed from the outset. Names 
that are correct under the rules are now being altered in order to make. 
them agree with others that should never have been recognized, or that 
should have been corrected as soon as the mistake was pointed out. He 
submits some cases for solution, and we will try to deal with them shortly. 
In a recent paper on Philippine Orchids, Mr. Oakes Ames discusses the 
nomenclature of the Cypripedium group, and horticulturists will be shocked 
to find him expressing the “ hope that Paphiopedilum will be added to the 
list of genera which one must retain regardless of priority,” although he 
admits that on the basis of priority we were perfectly justified in taking 
up Cordula for the Tropical Asiatic species. And he mentions four genera 
of Rafinesque as “‘ not unknown to Pfitzer,” who “wrongly referred ”’ three 
of them ‘“‘to the synonymy of Paphiopedilum ”’—almost implying some 
reason for their rejection. It is surely another example of the fatality that 
attends everyone who touches the group, for Pfitzer made all of them 
synonyms of Cypripedilum. His knowledge of them was evidently limited 
to extracting them from the synonymy given under Cypripedium in the 
Index, Kewensis, for had he turned to their proper places there he might 
have seen what they were based upon. 
The remark about a “ fatality’’ is no mere figure of speech, for the 
history of the question is almost a comedy of errors. Linnzeus for some 
