SEPTEMBER, 1909.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 263 
explain all the phenomena of variation, and variation is the material on 
which natural selection works. 
The book contains a full exposition of Mendelian methods, and a selection 
from a large number of experiments made by various observers, whose 
assistance is acknowledged. Some of the phenomena are also beautifully 
illustrated. But it is written entirely from the Mendelian standpoint, and 
contains a good many conclusions which, we believe, have not yet reached 
finality, and not a few which were absent from Mendel’s original essay. 
WILD ORCHIDS FROM SEED. 
You ask, Mr. Editor, for notes on the successful crossing of our wild 
Orchids, a subject that has always interested me, though hitherto I have 
not been successful. The reason, I think, why I have failed is that I have 
wished to get the bright colour of Orchis mascula into other early flowering 
species on the Riviera, and so perverse is the way of O. mascula that it will 
not flower a day earlier in the south of France than it does in England, and 
so I have failed to get its pollen with which to hybridize O. Robertianum. 
No one who has ever been at Nancy in the spring can fail to remember the 
remarkable beds of the finest form of O. mascula which is there used with 
great success as a spring bedder, and the tubers and roots, grown in the soft 
leaf mould they there employ, bear transplanting after flowering so as to 
ripen in reserve beds, with no apparent harm, judging by results. If we 
could get its colour and vigour into other hardy Orchises it would be a very 
desirable thing. 
Orchis longibracteata, or Robertianum, is an exceptionally handsome and 
vigorous winter blooming Orchid that is quite common on the Riviera, but 
many of its forms are dull in colour, so I vainly tried to induce O. mascula 
to flower at the same time, but with no success. I then tried O. longical- 
carata, the Algerian Orchis, as a pollen parent, but hitherto I have seen no 
trace of it appearing in the seedlings raised. What has succeeded ina 
wonderful degree is the improvement in colour by only seeding the brightest 
coloured forms of O. longibracteata, and I now can show perhaps a hundred 
or more plants of this Orchis with greatly improved colouring. The most 
important thing, it seems to me, is not to allow more than six seed pods to 
mature on any stem, however strong it may be. The seed is then so well 
developed (‘‘ fed’’) that I now have many hundreds of self-sown seedlings 
coming up in the grass over an area of several acres; and in a few years 
there will be too many, so rapidly do they grow and increase. The earliest 
spikes open at Christmastide, and the latest spikes last well into March, so 
for three months this bold growing Orchis is very handsome in the winter 
season, and makes one wish for something else as striking. 
There are also many Ophryses, but though their flowers are beautiful in 
