242 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
flowers having been removed, and that the hybrids are, for some reason, not 
as vigorous as last year. The group, however, is a most interesting one, 
and shows the relation of the different forms to each other in a very graphic 
manner. 
The three parent species are all natives of South Africa, the brilliant 
scarlet flowers of D. grandiflora (fig. 9) being too familiar to need 
description. D. tripetaloides (fig. 13) has white flowers prettily spotted 
with rose-pink inside the dorsal sepal. D. racemosa has brilliant rose- 
purple flowers, larger than those of D. x langleyensis, and much like it in 
general shape, except that the lateral sepals are more spreading and the 
spur of the dorsal one shorter and more obtuse. 
D. X Veitchii (fig. 12), the first of the series, was raised in the 
establishment of Messrs. James Veitch and Sons, by Mr. Seden, and 
flowered for the first time in June, 1891, when it received a First-class 
Certificate from the Royal Horticultural Society. Its parents are D. 
racemosa ? and D. grandiflora g, and it most resembles the former 
both in shape and colour. The first seedling reached the flowering stage 
twenty-one months after the seed was sown. It has since been raised by 
Messrs. James Backhouse and Son, of York (Orch. Rev. i., pp. 194, 323). 
D. X kewensis (fig. 10) was raised at Kew, by Mr. Watson, and first 
flowered in May, 1893. It was obtained by crossing D. grandiflora with the 
pollen of D. tripetaloides, whose characters it well combines. In shape it 
most resembles the pollen parent, but the colour is rose-pink, of a lighter 
shade on the dorsal sepal, which bears numerous darker red spots inside, 
the latter character also being derived from the pollen parent. The first 
plant flowered within eighteen months from the time the seed was sown, 
and thus established a record (Orch. Rev. i. pp- 193, 212). 
D. X langleyensis (fig. 11) was raised both by Messrs. James Veitch and 
Sons and at Kew, at about the same time, in each case seedlings being 
obtained both from D. racemosa crossed with the pollen of D. tripetaloides 
and from the reverse cross. It first flowered in May, 1894, in both the 
establishments mentioned, and Messrs. Veitch’s plant received an Award 
of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. The flowers are fairly 
intermediate in shape, but most resemble D. racemosa in its rose-purple 
colour. A few of the lighter forms, however, show a trace of the spotting 
of D. tripetaloides (Orch. Rev., ii., pp. 186, 202, 203). 
D. X Premier (fig. 8) was raised at Kew from D. tripetaloides 2 and D. 
x Veitchii ¢, and received a First-class Certificate from the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society in October, 1893, on the occasion of its first flowering. 
The flowers are rather larger than those of D. racemosa, and of a rich 
rose-purple. Thus the influence of D. tripetaloides is chiefly seen in the 
modified shape, while the combined characters of D. racemosa and “D. 
