THE ORCHID REVIEW. 239 



environment be continued for two or more generations they may become 

 hereditary, but, as Bailey very well remarks, the tendency towards fixity, 

 if it exists at all, undoubtedly originates at the very time that the variation 

 itself originates (it may be said to be due to the same force), and it is 

 sophhtry to assume that the form appears at one time and the tendency 

 towards permanence at another. 



It is quite evident that organisms are not made up of particles which 

 combine in definite proportions, like molecules are formed from their consti- 

 tuent atoms in chemistry, and the conception of unit-characters which 

 reproduce themselves absolutely is difficult to realise. As for the validity 

 of Mendel's so-called " Law" we cannot regard it as of general application 

 to the facts already observed among hybrids. 



GOODYERA NUDA. 

 Another of M. Warpur's Madagascar Orchids has flowered in the Kew 

 collection, and I believe that it belongs to Goodyera nuda, Thouars, a 

 species figured over eighty years ago {Orch. lies Afr., t. 29), but which is 

 still very imperfectly known. The original figure is very rude, and the 

 description altogether inadequate, while the habitat is given as Mauritius 

 and Bourbon. A. Richard afterwards gave a description, with a figure of 

 the flower {Orch. lies. Fr. et Bourb., p. 38, t. 6, fig. 3), but the details of the 

 latter are so erroneous that its authenticity has been doubted. Blume 

 made of it a new genus under the name of Gymnochilus nudus {Coll. Orch. 

 pp. 107, 108, t. 32, fig. 1), at the same time describing a second species 

 from Madagascar as G. recurvus {I.e., p. 109, t. 32, fig- 2). The characters 

 on which he relied for generic separation were the regular flowers— the lip 

 being petal-like— and some differences in the column, but Bentham 

 afterwards remarked as to this point :— " Gymnochilus . . . is scarcely 

 distinct from Goodyera except in the labellum being uniform with the 

 petals," and, after commenting on other genera where an abnormal 

 peloriate condition was known, concluded by saying that the matter 

 required further investigation {Journ. Linn. Soc. xviii, p. 34^). We now 

 come to recent materials. Humblot collected in Madagascar a plant which 

 chiefly differs from the Mauritian one in having irregular flowers, the spike 

 rather more lax, and the size rather larger (Blume's figure of G. recurvus is 

 rather smaller than the Mauritian plant). Then M. Warpur collected 

 flowerless specimens, but one of the living plants has now bloomed, and 

 also has irregular flowers, which to my mind confirms Bentham's idea that 

 Gymnochilus is only a peloriate state of Goodyera. There remains a slight 

 doubt whether all belong to a single species, the original G. nuda. This 

 seems probable, but a more complete set of specimens is necessary to settle 



