HE: ORC Heda ee vw 
VoL. XIV.] NOVEMBER, 1906. [No. 167. 
THE LATE REGINALD YOUNG’S HYBRIDISATION 
EXPERIMENTS. 
In our Obituary notice of the late Mr. Reginald Young (pp. 206, 207) we 
remarked that we hoped the origin of his numerous unflowered seedlings 
would not be lost sight of. A fortunate circumstance enables us to give 
some further particulars of the deceased gentleman’s work. The greater 
part of the collection having now been sold (see p. 208), Mrs. Young, the 
deceased’s widow, has forwarded his record books to us, thinking it desir- 
able that they should be placed where they are most likely to be of service 
in the future. 
Although Mr. Young cultivated a general collection of Orchids, his 
hybridisation experiments were chiefly confined to Cypripedes, and these were 
most extensive and were recorded with the most scrupulous accuracy. His 
record books were quarto in size, and were ruled in ten columns across the 
two pages, with headings as follows :—(1) Seed parent; (2) Pollen parent ; 
(3) Catalogue number of the plants crossed; (4) Date of hybridising ; (5) 
j Number 
Date of sowing seed ; (6) Apparent condition of seed when sown ; (7) 
and name of the plant on which the seed is sown; (8) Date of appearance 
of seedlings ; (g) If previously crossed, the name of the production, and (10) 
eneral Remarks. In this way Mr. Young had the history of each cross 
made, and the result. Thus column 5 sometimes records ‘‘ Did not take,” 
or “pod decayed,” as well as the date of sowing, while “ Failure” 1s 
tecorded in the later columns where necessary. “ Repotted ” frequently 
appears in the column for date of appearance of seedlings, which means “no 
Tesult,” for repotting did not take place until that operation appeared 
necessary, and all hope of the appearance of seedlings had been given up. 
It may be added that as the seedlings were potted off singly each received 
Catalogue number of its own, and these numbers we find extend to over 
2,500. The number of seedlings raised was frequently recorded, and was 
Senerally few, there being many entries of “one seedling,” and some of 
ings” are 
these: subsequently died.” In one case “ twenty-one seedlings 
