74 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
varieties . . . also the yellow ones that now and then crop up, are not 
crispums ; and if they are hybrids they run so near to O. crispum as to be 
indistinguishable from it in form” (/.c., Dec., 5, p- 686). 
Mr. Crawshay replies that ‘‘ there is great difficulty at present in really 
proper classification of the thousand-and-one forms, and to save a good 
deal of trouble a great many are called crispums that have no right to be so 
called. I can recall a plant under the care of ‘W. S.’ once figured as 
crispum ocellatum; that plant he has since shown, it is a_ beautiful 
‘ Ruckerianum ’—he knows it, too. ‘ W. S.’ chose one in his list, viz., that 
distinct thing ‘ Chestertoni,’ as one that it would be difficult to persuade 
growers was not a crispum. Baron Schroder showed the original plant on 
November roth, 1896, and had ‘ W. S.’ looked carefully into that flower he 
would have seen that it was a hybrid containing a lot of luteopurpureum, 
with the whole ground colour yellow, the sepals and lip only heavily 
blotched. This is the plant sent over by and named after Chesterton (see 
Vettch’s Manual, p. 31). Those in collections and known as Chesteitoni, as 
far as I have seen (vide the Pollett Sale Catalogue, March 15th, 1893), are 
only fine broad so-called crispums, full of spots, and totally unlike the 
original named one” (l.c., Dec. 26, p. 778). 
The point at issue seems to be this: How far is the polymorphism seen 
in O. crispum, so-called, due to variation pure and simple, and how many of 
the so-called varieties of O. crispum are really of hybrid origin, and there- 
fore not true varieties of crispum at all? On both these points a large 
number of facts may be found in my papers on ‘“‘ Hybrid Odontoglossums,” 
where the hybrids between O. crispum and the three species with which 
it grows are worked out almost exhaustively (Orch. Rev. I. pp. 142, 170, 201; 
and 275). It is these hybrid forms which obscure the true limits of O. 
crispum, which is very distinct from the other three, gloriosum, luteopur- 
pureum, and Lindleyanum. And in most cases it is possible, with proper 
materials at hand, to determine the parentage of any of the hybrids from the 
O. crispum district. The first thing to be done is to ascertain the range of 
variation of true O. crispum, and here I cannot agree with Mr. Crawshay, 
for there are both yellow and spotted forms in which I cannot detect the 
slightest deviation from the typical O. crispum in its essential charactefs;—— 
and especially in the details of the crest. This I should consider to be the 
case with O. crispum Golden Queen, which at the first glance I took to be 
a form of O. X Wilckeanum, but on careful examination failed to find a 
single character that could be ascribed to the influence of O. luteopur- 
pureum. No one may be able to tell the myriads of cross-fertilisations that 
have taken place. Messrs. Veitch remark that “‘ the agency by which these 
hybrids and polymorphisms have been produced has been in operation for 
ages past, and it cannot but have happened that a large number of these 
