106 THE MRCHID REVIEW. 
NOMENCLATURE OF HYBRIDS. 
A CORRESPONDENT again calls attention to the rapidly-growing confusion 
in the nomenclature of hybrids, and urges the necessity of a better under- 
standing as to the principles to be followed in naming these plants, and a 
better system of recording the hybrids already in existence, so as to prevent 
so many duplications of names. 
With regard to the former point, it has been very well observed that we 
have two or three different and more or less conflicting systems in use at 
the same time, and a further discussion of the principles involved may help 
to clear the way for some improvement. In the first place it seems to be 
generally agreed that in some way hybrids should be distinguished from 
natural species, and in order to affect this three different methods have been 
adopted. : 
(1) To give names to hybrids compounded from those of their two 
parents, as Dendrobium Wardiano-aureum. 
(2) To name them uniformly as florist’s flowers, as Cattleya William 
Murray. 
(3) To use a Latinised specific name with the addition of the sign of 
hybridity, “ x,” as Phalznopsis x intermedia. ee 
The first method has the advantage of indicating the parentage, and is 
in accordance with a botanical rule, but there are several objections 
which suffice to prevent its general adoption. The parentage is not always 
known, in which case the alternative botanical rule is in accordance with 
the system No. 3, just mentioned. The plant when described may not be 
known to be a hybrid, as Lelia Schilleriana. The compounded name may 
be too long for practical use, as Cypripedium Fairrieano-Lawrenceanum. 
Or, what is the most fatal objection of all, it must inevitably break down 
when applied to compound hybrids derived from several species. 
The second method is inapplicable to natural hybrids whose origin 1s 
unsuspected at the time of their appearance, and which are consequently 
described as species, ‘And, as now applied, it does not lend itself to the 
principle now almost universally adopted of considering all hybrids between 
the same two species as forms of one, nor yet with the rules of binomial 
nomenclature. (See remarks of Argus at p. 6 of our fourth volume). It is, 
The third method combines most of the advantages of the other two, 
It indicates clearly that the plant is not 4 
species, without vitiating the principle of binomial nomenclature, and is 
applicable both to wild and artificial hybrids, whether the parentage }§ 
