4 o THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



about— indeed the confusion is too great already. We quite endorse M. 

 Cappe's remarks that some of these forms are really beautiful, and we 

 recognize the rapid improvement which is taking place in this and other 

 groups, but this progress also warns us to be careful how we name our 

 plants. We cannot possibly grow all the numerous forms which are being 

 raised. The poorer forms will gradually be replaced by improved varieties, 

 and the day may come when some of those prized now may be chiefly of 

 antiquarian interest. Even in the same batch of seedlings some forms are 

 not worth keeping, but those which are kept should be named in such a way 

 that their relationship to each other is not lost. 



A parallel case is found in P. X aureum (Spicerianum X nitens var.) y 

 and the difference between the five forms figured in the Dictionnairc des 

 Orchidees is remarkable, and may serve as a precedent for the interesting 

 case now under c 



APOSTASIA WALLICHII. 



A figure of this remarkable Orchid is given in the ninth volume of the 

 Annals of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, of which the first part has just 

 appeared. Sir George King remarks : — 



" This plant was excluded by Mr. Pantling and myself from the eighth 

 volume of these Annals (The Orchids of the Sikkim Himalaya) on the ground 

 that the genus Apostasia is doubtfully Orchidaceous. The regular perianth, 

 the free, unmodified anthers, style, and stigma, the free pollen, trilocular 

 ovary, and hard ellipsoidal seeds characteristic of the genus contrast strongly 

 with the same organs in the conventional Orchidaceous flower. The balance 

 of authority is, however, undoubtedly in favour of the view that both 

 Apostasia and the allied genus Neuwiedia represent aberrant, or, rather, very 

 ancient, forms of Orchidece. According to the general view the ancestral 

 characters of an Orchid are in these two genera little, if at all, masked by 

 the later adaptations which we are accustomed to associate with the flowers 

 of that natural order. A resume of the arguments in favour of this view 

 will be found in Mr. Allen Rolfe's excellent papers in vol. xxv. of the 

 Journal of the Linncan Society, and in vol. iv. of the Orchid Review. In the 

 meantime, the figure originally prepared for the volume on the Orchids of 

 Sikkim is here given, accompanied by a description in which are used none 

 of the terms peculiar to Orchidologists, in the hope that they may be of 

 some use to botanists who have opportunities of examining living specimens 

 of Apostasia." The part is entitled, "A Second Century of new and rare 

 Indian plants," and this is the only Orchid it contains— for there can be no 

 doubt that it is a primitive member of this remarkable family. 



