266 THE ORCHID REVIEW. (SEPTEMBER, 1913. 
up, or take the seed pod, and when they have found enough they send them 
back to England. There they are nursed in glasshouses, where the soil 
and temperature are made as nearly as possible the same as in their homes, 
and in a few years two specially fine plants are selected to become parents 
of that triumph of the gardener—a new Orchid. 
This improving on Nature is a long business. When the pollen is 
transferred from one flower to another—an office performed in the ordinary 
way by some insect—the flower quickly withers, and then gradually 
produces a large seed pod containing in six months or so thousands of 
little seeds. When the pod bursts the seeds are collected and sprinkled on 
the surface of a mossy soil under growing plants, just as in a wild state the 
seeds fall on to the ground. Soon the seeds swell, and in due time they 
are removed into roomier quarters, and eventually promoted to a pot each. 
But it is years before they flower, and the gardener who is anxious to see 
what he has produced may have to wait six years to know. 
But although it is a slow business it is a very exciting one. The grower 
never knows what flower he will produce. For all he knows it may be 
yellow or green, or white, big or small, round or pointed. Even flowers 
that have come out of the same seed pod are never exactly the same. They 
will have a family likeness, but there is always some difference. Some- 
times the grower fails. The offspring of two magnificent parents may be a 
poor weedy thing fit only to be thrown away, and then the care of years is 
wasted. But usually the grower can rely on getting a good plant when he 
is content with parents that are thoroughbreds, or at any rate are not the 
result of several crosses. Nature rebels after a time, and can be improved 
upon only up to a certain point. Beyond that point she refuses to go, and 
the skill of the grower is in knowing exactly how far he may take 
liberties, and, of course, in selecting plants that are most likely to produce 
a beautiful and healthy offspring. 
The skilled grower is really a creative artist who uses the materials 
which Nature has given him as a painter uses his brush. He is always 
trying to produce something new, and every year he has his successes and 
his failures. His anxious moments are when after, say, six years the bud 
of an Orchid opens and he sees what he has created. It may be a weed, or 
it may be a triumph of form and colour which will be hailed as the Orchid 
of the year. 
After the little disquisition on Nomenclature given last month, the 
ollowing note in the Gardeners’ Chronicle for August 2nd naturally caught 
our eye :— 
‘* How PLANTs ARE NAMED.—The following conversation between tw0 
experts took place at a recent fortnightly meeting of the R.H.S.: Aw 
