326 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
SOME CURIOSITIES OF ORCHID BREEDING. 
A VERY interesting lecture bearing the above title was given by Mr. 
C. C. Hurst at the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society on 
October 12th. In introducing the subject the lecturer referred to the 
rapid increase in the number of hybrid Orchids during recent years, 
and with it the appearance of a number of anomalous forms whose 
peculiarities it was difficult to account for. An examination of the 
normal effects of hybridisation, however, and the details of fertilisation 
- generally, might help to explain some of these mysteries. 
Hybrids between two distinct species were generally intermediate 
between their two parents, both in their minute structure and in their 
external characters. All hybrids between the same two were alike 
specifically, but, like species, differed in varietal characters, and these 
varietal differences were found to correspond with the varietal differences 
of the parents. Cypripedium x Leeanum, the well-known hybrid 
between C. insigne and Spicerianum, might be taken as an example. 
All the seedlings derived from such a cross would be C. xX Leeanum, 
whichever species was used as the seed parent—for there was no 
intrinsic difference in reversed crosses. The various seedlings would not 
differ from each other more than do the varieties of a true species. It 
was therefore very important that all should bear the same specific 
name, and to distinguish those forms which were distinct enough, 
varietal names should be added. There were many distinct. varieties 
of C. X Leeanum, but the same could be said of C. insigne, one of 
the parents. The yellow C. insigne Sanderz, used as one parent, had 
yielded the light-coloured C. x Leeanum Prospero. 
The process of fertilisation was described, the details being largely. 
drawn from Mr. Veitch’s ‘experiments with Cattleya Mossiz. In explaining 
the essentials of fertilisation as the union of the nucleus of the pollen-cell 
of the father parent with the nucleus of the egg-cell of the mother, the 
lecturer alluded to some: recent researches into the nature of the nucleus, 
and the discovery that certain fibres which it contains, called chromosomes, 
(idants of Weismann) are, just before fertilisation, reduced in number by 
one half, both in the male and female cell, and cited the opinion of 
Weismann that in the details of this reduction of the number of 
chromosomes was the secret both of heredity and variation. 
The first curiosities alluded to were several crosses between distinct 
species which reproduced only the mother parent, and these were termed 
False Crosses, the suggested explanation being that the results were due 
to self-fertilisation, as on other occasions the same crosses had yielded 
true hybrids. The section dealing with hybrids of the second generation, 
