170 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
ringiana, C. Dormaniana, and C. superba together; and the third with C. 
Triane and C. Percivaliana. The first pod opened at 10 months, the 
second at eleven, and the third has just opened at 173 months. The. pods 
all contained an abundance of viable seeds, many of which are still alive, 
and those of the second are quite promising in appearance. In November, 
1894, with four flowers on the same plant of C. Trianz virginalis, I crossed 
one with L. anceps alba, ripe in 9} months; one with C. Walkeriana, ripe 
in 11} months; one with C. labiata, ripe in 13}; and one with L. crispilabia, 
not yet ripe at 17 months; all of which seems to indicate a decided 
influence on the part of the pollen parent. 
To simplify the matter of records I use circular tags—cut from letter 
paper by a gun-wad punch—each attached to the pedicel of the hybridized 
flower by a loop of thread, and bearing the names, in pencil, of both 
parents and the date. In the note book the completed record would read 
as in the following example :— 
» 1895. 
May 15. C. Mossie x L. grandis ({—5 da.) 1. ! 
Ripe March 10, 1896, 10 months. 
The amount of pollen used is given by the fraction in the parentheses 
(the quantity yielded by one flower being taken as unity), the “5 da.” 
indicates that the pollen had been kept five days before using, and the “1” 
outside the parentheses, that only one flower was thus crossed. Whenever — 
the pod dies instead of ripening, the tag is removed, and if any consider- 
able time has elapsed since pollination, the date of death is entered on its 
back, and at any convenient time thereafter this date is entered in the note 
book, a naught (0) takes the place of the exclamation point at the end of 
line, and the tag is destroyed. In a rough way the time that elapses before 
the death of the pod gives a hint as to the amount of affinity between the 
species crossed, though single cases will often be misleading. My note book 
already contains over 1,500 entries of attempted crosses made during the 
last three years, and 230 apparently good pods have been gathered so far. 
When the pod ripens it is cut off and put in a paper bag about four by 
seven inches, name of cross and dates entered at the top, and dates and 
manner of planting entered below. These bags, when empty, are filed in 
alphabetical order, according to name of female parent, like library catalogue 
cards, and the further progress of the seedlings noted on them as may seem 
desirable, so that the whole history of every pod is on file and may be 
referred to at any moment. 
My rule is to make all the crosses possible with my material, that is, all 
in which there is a reasonable chance of getting good seed, without regard 
to the fact that many crosses would probably be worthless from 4 
commercial or even horticultural point of view. I have made also a g 
