THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
Vou, XIX.] SEPTEMBER, tort. [No. 225. 
OUR NOTE BOOK. 
A VERY interesting event in recorded on page 262, namely, the flowering of 
an artificially- raised form of Leliocattleya elegans. Over sixty years have 
elapsed since the plant originally appeared, and, naturally, at that period it 
was described as a species. But soon afterwards Mr. Dominy commenced 
his epoch- -making experiments in hybridising Orchids, and less than thirty 
years later came Reichenbach’s suggestion that the plant was a natural 
hybrid. The view was not universally accepted at first, but events have 
proved it true, for it has now been raised artificially by crossing the two 
suggested eile together. 
The event is interesting in several respects, and it may = mentioned as 
a curious circumstance that the plant was described before either of its 
parents, though we now know that all three appeared at about the same 
time, and from the same locality—if not all in the same importation. It 
is also curious that two quite distinct hybrids—both originally described as 
species—should have been confused under the same name. We allude to 
the plants formerly called Lelia elegans alba and L. elegans Turneri, the 
first—afterwards identified with Leeiocattleya Schilleriana—having since 
been raised artificially on three different occasions. 
It will be seen from the account mentioned that it was one of Mr. 
Dominy’s hybrids which indirectly led to the discovery of the origin of 
Lzliocattleya elegans, and we cannot over-estimate the value of the brilliant 
series of experiments carried out in the establishment of Messrs. James 
Veitch & Sons, which may be said to have revolutionised the history of 
Orchidology, both in its horticultural and its scientific aspect. If we know 
something about natural hybrids to-day it is largely because of a series of 
- experiments which have removed the subject from the regions of speculation 
to the firm bed-rock of established fact. 
It is, perhaps, a little remarkable that the experiment under discussion 
was not carried out before, for at the time that Reichenbach made his 
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