THE ORCHID REVIEW. 165 
No remedial measures have the slightest effect, for a pseudobulb once bored 
must decay and die in the end. By experiments it hes beep proved that the 
beetle does not confine its attacks to Dendrobi psis, for I have 
had to burn three plants of D. Devonianum ace were full of it, and have 
also proved that it will bore into D. nobile and thyrsiflorum, and live in 
their pseudobulbs. 
I am doing my level best to stamp out this pest, but am very doubtful 
whether I shall succeed or not. 
O. O. WRIGLEY. 
Bridge Hall, Bury. 
peat aagigc 
NOMENCLATURE OF ORCHIDS. 
THE constantly increasing number of hybrid Orchids and the consequent 
multiplication of names tends to make the nomenclature question a most 
important one to cultivators of Orchids. It was therefore with considerable 
interest that I read the very pertinent observations of the Right Hon. 
Joseph Chamberlain on this subject in the May Review (p. 135), and I 
think that the thanks of all Orchid lovers are due to him for his timely 
interposition on behalf of law and order. In the course of some trenchant 
and pointed remarks Mr. Chamberlain lays the responsibility of much of 
the present confusion in nomenclature upon the Orchid Committee of the 
Royal Horticultural Society, and to some extent I fear his indictment is but 
too true. 
Mr. Chamberlain proceeds to suggest the desirability of distinguishing 
the reverse crosses of hybrids by a distinctive name, but I venture to think 
that if that course were followed, instead of bringing “order out of chaos,” 
it would but serve to make “‘ confusion worse confounded.” Mr. Chamber- 
lain truly says that “‘ there are very great and marked differences in the 
reverse crosses of different Orchids,” and appears to assume from this that 
if a reverse cross happens to produce a distinct form, it is because it is a 
reverse cross, and therefore, as such, should have a distinctive name. This 
rather reminds one of the old fallacy, “‘ post hoc ergo propter hoc,” for it has 
been demonstrated many times, by the experiments of careful observers, 
that there is no intrinsic difference in reverse crosses. (See Kerner, Nat. 
Hist. Pl., Eng. Ed.1I., p. 557-) I submit, therefore, that distinctive specific 
names for reverse crosses would not only be superfluous, but in many cases 
would be positively misleading. Ifa distinct form appears, whether in a 
reverse cross or not, by all means give it a varietal name to distinguish it, 
but pray let it retain the one specific name of the hybrid. On the whole, I 
think no better system of nomenclature could be adopted than that con- 
sistently followed in the Orchid Review, which is based upon the laws laid 
down by the Paris Botanical Congress of 1867, and upon the recommenda- 
