66 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [MaARCH, 1903. 
We have now evidence of another kind of progress in hybridisation. It 
has often been remarked that hybrids were too long in arriving at the 
flowering stage, but in the Report of the R.H.S. Scientific Committee for 
February roth, we read that Mr. Odell called attention to a “ Cattleya” 
seedling which had flowered in the almost incredibly short period of eleven 
months after the seed was sown. It is said to have been exhibited at 
*‘a show,” but when, where, by whom, and from what parents, is not 
stated. The case is so interesting that one wants to know more about 
it, and Mr. Odell is invited to furnish a supplementary report. Can it 
be that Calanthe, not Cattleya, was intended? I ask this because in the 
report of plants exhibited at the same meeting there is a note of a hybrid 
Calanthe, exhibited from the collection of N. C. Cookson, Esq., flowering 
in eleven months from the time of sowing. In any case the event is 
remarkable. 
““What’s in a name?” “A Provincial,” writing in the Fournal of 
Horticulture, describes this as an appropriate text for the introduction of the 
long-standing complaint which numbers of people have against plant 
nomenclature in its present confused condition. He invites us to “ glance 
for a brief space at some of the unlovely names given to new Orchids 
shown at the R.H.S. meetings. Note how the different classes are being 
brought together by hybridising, and tell me if anything like concise or 
simple names exist. It is not likely that many will be so impressed with 
the length of a specimen’s name to think the plant thereby enhanced in 
value. Yet what other reason the introducers can have for some of the 
atrocities noted is hard to understand or explain.” He speaks of a legacy 
of confusion, but unfortunately he gives no examples of the evils to be 
remedied, and one can only guess what he is driving at. But heis eager 
for the appointment of a Committee to put things straight, and it will be 
interesting to await developments. Some of these days, when I have 
more time, I may be tempted to accept his invitation. 
ARGUS. 
PAPHIOPEDILUM FAIRRIEANUM. 
“WHEN did the mysterious Paphiopedilum Farrieanum last flower in 
England?” The question is difficult to answer, but several experienced 
Orchidists tell us that they have never seen a living flower. We do not 
believe that it has been exhibited at any R.H.S. meeting during the last 
ten years, and the latest record that we know of is October 11th, 1887, when 
a plant, bearing three flowers, was exhibited by the late F. G. Tautz, 
Esq., Studley House, Hammersmith (Gard. Chron., 1887, ii, p. 475). This 
Plant with its three flowers was afterwards figured in the Journal of 
