18 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
from a photograph taken by Mr. G I’Anson, of Upper Clapton, and is 
about three-fourths natural size. 
Cypripedium Mastersianum, Rchb. f. in Gard. Chron., 1879, li. p. 102 ; Lindentia, iv. 
p- 33; Veitch Man. Orch., iv, p- 39. 
ORCHID HYBRIDISATION. 
I AM extremely pleased to see in last month’s number of THE ORCHID 
Review that you intend publishing all practical details that you can gather 
relative to orchid cross fertilising and hybridisation, so that your readers 
may learn how to proceed to operate successfully ; and I trust that your 
hope—that those readers of your magazine who gather experience in their 
varied attempts will communicate to you the results of their observations— 
may be realised. I have every reason to believe that this want of knowledge 
sometimes gives rise to erroneous conclusions—for instance, you have inti- 
mated in a former number (p. 17) that it is not possible to cross-fertilise 
Dendrobium fimbriatum oculatum with another species. My own experience 
enables me to combat this theory. Some few years back I successfully 
obtained four or five fine seed-pods, which, when fully ripened, produced good 
and apparently fertile seed, when viewed through the microscope, from a 
plant of Dendrobium fimbriatum oculatum crossed with the pollen of 
Dendrobium primulinum giganteum. Again, I now have ripening on a 
plant of Dendrobium nobile two fine seed-pods from flowers fertilised with 
the pollen of Dendrobium fimbriatum oculatum. But although these two 
attempts have been successful, I had numberless failures when trying to 
obtain the same result. I found out, however, in the course of my many 
experiments, that certain conditions were necessary to ensure a good result, 
the principal one being that the plant should not be shaded in any way, and 
the fertilised flowers not too exposed to a burning sun. Again, the tempera- 
ture should not be a low one, or the atmosphere a moist one, as many of 
my failures were, I found, caused by the damping or turning yellow of the 
young seed-pod, owing to excess of moisture. When the seed “sets ” the 
plant must be watered constantly and sparingly—constantly in order to 
cause the pod to swell, and sparingly to avoid excess of moisture from rapid 
evaporation at the base of the plant. My deductions, therefore, are that for 
Dendrobium crossing certain things are absolutely necessary—sunlight, a 
dry atmosphere, and heat. 
Some time ago you suggested that an interesting result might be obtained 
by crossing the Chimera section of Masdevallia with that containing 
Harryana, Lindeni, etc. I have effected that. I have obtained seed-pod 
and seed from M. Harryana crossed with M. bella, and from M. Lindeni 
crossed with M. Houtteana, but try as I may I cannot obtain any seed-pods 
the reverse way—i.c., with species of the M. Chimera group as seed parent. 
