108 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
again lies in the use of the vernacular, and might have been avoided by 
latinising the specific names, and writing C. X Murrayi fulgens and P. 
X Schroederi splendens. BL 
The specific name should consist of a single word, though in a few cases 
two are admissible if connected with a hyphen, but no one would propose 
the addition of a hyphen in the cases just mentioned. It is, of course, not 
. Necessary that specific names should always be latinised, for there are 
numerous classical and mythological names which are well suited to the 
purpose, and many of them have been very happily employed, as Niobe, 
Cassandra, Hebe, &c. And they are as suitable for secondary hybrids as 
for primary ones, for some of the former differ so little from each other that 
the addition of a varietal name is much better than one which fails to 
indicate their relation to each other. 
A word or two more may be said about the practice of compounding a 
name for a hybrid from that of its parents, which some are in favour of. A 
name like Cypripedium x ceno-superbiens may seem_ simple and 
euphonious, but it is too much abbreviated to explain whether C. X 
cenanthum or C. x CEnone were one of the parents. It would also have 
been impossible if the system had been in vogue from the commencement, 
because cenanthum is a compound hybrid made up of barbatum, villosam, 
and insigne, to which superbiens is now added, and an attempt to 
incorporate this history in a specific name is impracticable. 
The rule of giving to hybrids the joint names of their parents would 
entail wholesale changes in nomenclature, and largely invalidate the law 
of priority, for which latter reason the names Odontoglossum glorioso- 
crispum, Lelio-cattleya purpurato-intermedia, and others—though given 
in- accordance with a botanical rule—have been objected to. The com- 
pound names themselves would sometimes require alteration, because the 
parentage is not always correctly interpreted at the first attempt, as ~ 
the case of Odontoglossum x excellens and O. x Cookeanum, which 1s 
another argument in favour of the system of using a specific name. And 
in the case of a hybrid originally described as a species, all that 1s 
necessary is the addition of the sign of hybridity, as in the case of 
Oncidium Xx hematochilum. It would occasionally act in the reverse 
way, for Cattleya velutina was at first described as a natural hybrid. 
Fortunately, however, the joint names of the supposed parents were not 
given, so that instead of having to give a new specific name, all that was 
necessary was the removal of the “x.” It might be argued that the use of 
a compound name renders the use of the “ x ” unnecessary, but such 1s 
not the case, for there are compound specific names connected by * 
hyphen which, in point of form, are identical with compound hybrid 
names, . 
