NovEMBER, 1913-] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 333 
Hugh Low & Co. some twelve or fourteen years ago, and is said to 
resemble the seed bearer in habit except that some of the bulbs have one 
and some two leaves. It is a remarkably brilliant flower, with very broad 
deep rose-purple segments, and some yellow on the disc of the well- 
expanded lip. It has retained some of the C. Dowiana fragrance, but the 
influence of Lzlia Dayana is hardly apparent. 
A very fine form of Cypripedium Leeanum has been sent from the 
collection of J. U. Hodgson, Esq., Bebington Hall, Birkenhead. The 
dorsal sepal is 2? inches broad, white, with a green base and a few brown 
dots, while two rows of purple dots extend to the apex. The petals and lip 
are quite typical in character. It was raised in the collection. 
PARTHENOGENESIS. 
AT a meeting of the R.H.S. Orchid Committee held some months ago 
Mr. John S. Moss, Wintershill, Bishops Waltham, “showed a flower of a 
fourth generation of Zygopetalum Mackayi crossed with the pollen of 
Odontoglossum crispum, which _ still reproduced the Zygopetalum 
unmodified. A note on the same plant is given at page 111, and it is now 
clear fhat hybrids need never be expected from such a cross. Messrs. 
McBean, Cooksbridge, have also crossed Epidendrum radicans with the 
pollen of Bletia Shepherdii, and raised about a hundréd seedlings, none of 
whicb show a trace of the Bletia, and one has now flowered. It is 
evidently another case of parthenogenesis, and the more curious because of 
the well-known difficulty of getting capsules of the Epidendrum when 
pollinated with other genera. This is probably due to some mechanical 
difficulty, either in the relative size or length of the pollen tubes and the 
micropyle of the ovules or in the relative times required by these diverse 
species to reach maturity, and the ovules then continue to develop and 
mature in the absence of fertilisation. 
The term ‘‘ False hybrids” has been applied to such cases among 
Orchids, and we are asked whether that of ‘‘ Parthenogensis” can be 
strictly applied. We believe it can, for the term is applicable to any 
sexual bud that matures and reproduces the organism without fertilisation. 
Of course in this case there is something additional, for the ovules of 
Orchids are only developed as the result of pollination, but the stimulus to 
development can be set up by foreign pollen which is not capable of 
subsequently effecting fertilisation, hence the ovules proceed no further, 
except in the anomalous cases under discussion and others which have 
been recorded. It is a case of the development of the ovules as the result 
of the stimulus of pollination, and as the alien pollen tubes do not enter the 
micropyle of the ovule there can be no transmission of paternal characters. 
A note on the subject appears at pp- I41, 142 of our last volume, 
