66 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [Marcu, ris 
declared that he had received Oncidium bifolium from a traveller returning 
from Montevideo, who had seen the plant flower, deprived of all soil, in the 
-cabin he occupied on shipboard. 
“Horticulturists tried from the first to reproduce artificially the 
‘conditions for aérial life, and it was thus that the celebrated Joseph Banks, 
in 1817, described the first attempts at culture in frames suspended from 
the roof of the greenhouse. Treatment of Orchids in pots with some sort 
-of earth, which had been the method employed in the first attempts at 
cultivation at the end of the eighteenth century, was altogether barbarous. 
and inevitably resulted in the death of the delicate aérial. No one would 
think of making a fish live out of water. How could one expect that a 
‘species accustomed to a free epiphytic life would accommodate itself 
without injury to a low terrestrial existence ? ” 
The paper then goes on to describe the cultural experiments, the vast 
introductions, and the great extension of Orchid culture, until in course 
-of time the secret of raising them from seed caused a revolution in the 
industry. In 1822 the French botanist, Du Petit Thouars, remarked that 
‘it was believed for a long time that the seeds were incapable of the first act 
-of vegetation, and only a short time before had their germination been 
“observed in England by Dr. Salisbury. 
As the nineteenth century progressed other examples of germination 
were recorded, and this led to another development, namely hybridisation, 
-a work which had been carried on with great success among other garden 
plants. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century growers had not under- 
taken the task with Orchids, because of their inabi 
lity to secure germination, 
and horticultural activity, 
rendered fruitless, had to exercise itself in some 
other direction to satisfy the admirers of the beautiful plants. It was thus 
that importations became so extensive. Nowhere else in the vegetable 
kingdom is there another province where th 
from this point of view. 
The extension of the method of hybridisation to Orchids, commenced by 
Dominy in the Veitchian Establishment, inaugurated a new era, which has 
practically revolutionised Orchid culture. After giving details of the 
progress of hybridisation, the author remarks that despite the wonderful 
results cited those who obtained them were, until the last few years, 
ignorant of the true reason for the cultural technique they employed, and 
there were numerous inexplicable failures. The riddle was solved by the 
discovery that the germination of Orchid 
€ exertion has been so prodigious 
seeds was due to the action of 
