3 i2 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



argued that L.-c. X elegans and Schilleriana do not answer to this 

 description, or if a few extreme forms do so they must be secondary hybrids. 

 In any case flowers of these two plants should be preserved for future 

 reference and comparison. 



If the contention of " Argutus " is valid, there are several more possible 

 secondary hybrids to be looked for. We have three species growing 

 together, and three known primary hybrids between them ; and now two 

 of the latter are each said to have recrossed with one of its original parents. 

 But clearly they may also recross with the other original parent, and the 

 third hybrid with each of its parents. And each primary hybrid might also 

 intercross with the third species growing there, which is not one of its own 

 parents ; and, again, they might also intercross among themselves ; making 

 a total of ten more possible secondary hybrids. And six of these should 

 have all three species in their ancestry, so th at these might be looked for 

 with better hopes of success— if they really exist— that is so far as marks 

 of recognition are concerned. Fortunately our hybridists, have provided 

 us with a few standards for comparison, for already we have L. purpurata 

 X L.-c. X Schilleriana (= L.-c. X Horniana), L. purpurata X L.-c. X 

 elegans (= L.-c. X Pringiersi), C. intermedia X L.-c. X elegans (= L.-c. 

 X Cicero), and L.-c. X Schilleriana X C. Leopoldi (== L.-c. X aurelian- 

 ensis), which should be useful in view of the extension of this difficult 

 question. It should be added that two or three amendments have been 

 introduced since the original records. 



By the way, our astute friend seems to have overlooked the fact that 

 we have already a Laslio-cattleya X Queen Alexandra (L.-c. X bella X 

 C. Trianse), a First-Class Certificated plant too. But there is no need to 

 re-christen his later plant, for if he is correct as to its parentage it should 

 rank as a form of L.-c. X Horniana. But this point is quite open to 

 question, for there is the well-known variation of seedlings from the same 

 capsule to allow for. At all events the plant should be further compared 

 with L.-c. X Schilleriana, which is polymorphic enough. 



MENDEL'S LAW OF INHERITANCE. 



In an article entitled " Some Recent Work on Hybrids in Plants " by 

 V. H. Blackman (New Phytologist, 1902, pp. 73-80, 97-106), summarised in 

 the Botanisches Centralblatt, it is remarked that while the work of recent 

 investigators extends and confirms the laws enunciated by Mendel, it also 

 tends to show that these laws are only special cases of more general ones yet 

 to be discovered. The evidence furnished by Mendel, and by more recent 

 investigators, seems to point to a theory of heredity of the type of Darwin's 

 Pangenesis, in the form lately put forward by De Vries. 



