68 : THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
There are two notes from a report in the Gardeners’ Chronicle of the 
meeting of the Manchester Orchid Society held on January 24th, which are 
not unconnected with the question of Confusion in N lature to which 
allusion was made last month. Respecting some Cypripediums exhibited 
we read:—‘‘ Two of the plants were apparently new, viz., C. nigratum 
(sic) and C .virens. They seem to be bastard forms of C. purpuratum.” Now 
C. nigritum is a Bornean species which was described by Reichenbach in 
1882, and C. virens of the same author, and from the same country, dates 
from 1863. C. purpuratum, it may be added, is a native of Hongkong, and 
I suppose that even for natural hybrids we must draw the line somewhere. 
The other note refe:s to “a hybrid Dendrobium, the parents of which 
were D. nobile var. Cypheri x D. heterocarpum, and was given the dual name 
of D. hetero-Cypher (Award of Merit). Cypripedium x Lawre-Spicer «ame 
from the same grower.” Whenever wil! it be remembered that all hybrids 
between Dendrobium nobile and D. aureum (syn. heterocarpum) are forms 
of D. x Ainsworthii ? And how about Cypripedium X radiosum?  I- was 
once told that dual names were excellent, because they gave a clue to the 
parentage of a plant, and I remember reading that all attempts to combine 
the history of a plant in its name must necessarily end in failure. The 
latter remark at all events seems applicable to the present case. 
“G. H. H.” please note. 
ARGUS. 
CYPRIPEDIUM x SIMONIL VAR. OBSCURUM. 
In American Gardening, vol. xx., p. 874, was given-a figure of a supposed 
natural hybrid between Cypripedium insigne and C. Spicerianum. The 
plant from which the figure was made bloomed again last November, and a 
comparative study of garden hybrids related to it has furnished ample 
evidence on which to base the belief that it is a natural hybrid, the result 
of across between C. x Leeanum (not C. Spicerianum, as was at first 
supposed and suggested), and C. insigne. Such a combination would give 
C. x Simonii. For the form figured the name C. x Simonii var. obscurum 
has been suggested and seems well conceived. A coloured drawing of this 
natural hybrid may be seen in the library of the Massachusetts Horticul- 
tural Society—Oakes Ames, in Amer. Gard. XXxi., pp. 44, 45, fig. 11. 
I have only seen the drawing, but cannot avoid a suspicion that the 
point is not yet proved. About a year ago we were discussing the possi- ° 
bility of the first-named cross appearing as a wild plant (O. R. viii., p- 50); 
and if this latter view is correct the case is certainly remarkable. 
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