THE ORCHID REVIEW. 35 
DIES ORCHIDIANZ. 
I BRIEFLY alluded to the great Nomenclature Question in my last notes, 
and I see that ‘“‘G. H. H.” makes some very pertinent remarks on the 
“Muddle of Varieties,” and the ‘‘Need of Reform,” in the Journal of 
Horticulture for December 2oth last (p. 548). The confusion, by the way, 
is dated from the time that the ‘‘ hybridist became a power in the land.”’ 
_“ When one looks around and sees the creations for which the hybridist is 
responsible one can realize to some extent the magnitude of the work, and 
we have to thank a Nature that is so amenable to the skill of human art. 
But is there not a danger of overdoing this work, if it is not already done ? 
Or rather, has not the time arrived when some check should be put on it, so 
that we may know what new forms are new indeed, not slight variations of 
something that already exists, or perhaps the vaunting of something as 
new that is really old, though perhaps obscure? Up to now the work has 
been all.on one side. We have given a welcome to anything and everything 
without questioning its distinctiveness or originality, and any variety that 
has come out blessed with a name has been accepted as something new. 
Many disappointments have been felt later on.” 
Just so, and the writer goes on to remark :—‘“‘ Varieties are in a state 
of chaos,” and this condition of things is “‘ not sudden or intentional,” but 
“a matter of drift, with financial interests perhaps at the bottom of it, and 
the absence of power to govern the work. No generally recognized system 
of government exists. The reason is simple enough. One brings out a 
variety that is new to him and gives it the name of some celebrity, or 
perhaps a friend, as a compliment. He has no official means of knowing 
that the same variety is already known and named, and so we get two of 
them, or perhaps half a dozen, or more.” 
— 
The author goes on to speak about sweet peas and potatoes—it 
-might very well have been Orchids—and concludes by saying :—‘‘ Let every 
encouragement be given to the work of fertilisation and selection. We 
cannot have a superabundance of the beautiful and the useful, but let us 
have the work carried on under some defined rule to act as a guide to 
growers, and to be respected by raisers.” There is too much disorder. 
Varietal names are handed out far too liberally, and “the man who is the 
most puzzled is the one who tries to find out the system upon which the 
whole question is conducted.” 
mn 
