Aveust, 1908.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 229 
The case of P. insigne Sanderze crossed with P. X Maudie is decidedly 
interesting. The latter is a true albino, raised from the albino varieties P. 
callosum Sander and P. Lawrenceanum Hyeanum, but when united with 
P. insigne Sander it yields a coloured hybrid closely approaching the 
forms of P. X Eucharis and P. X Leonez just mentioned, which hybrids 
are very closely allied. Theoretically it should be exactly intermediate 
between them, and it would be very interesting to compare the three in a 
living state. P.x Maudiz on the whole most resembles P. callosum Sanderz 
in shape, as the petals are somewhat curved and drooping, not straight and 
horizontal, as in P. Lawrenceanum, but these differences are lost in the 
secondary hybrid, and the two now sent might pass as forms of one 
Without evidence of their origin. They are cases of partial reversion, 
analagous to those previously recorded. 
It is rather curious that out of the six possible combinations between 
P. callosum Sandere, P. Lawrenceanum Hyeanum, P. insigne Sandere 
and P. bellatulum album, all of which have been raised and have now 
flowered, only the first should have reproduced the albino character. 
It would be interesting to repeat the cross, to see whether history repeats 
itself. P. bellatulum album should also be self-fertilised, for we know that 
the other three reproduce themselves true from seed. This diversity of 
behaviour when the same plants are selfed and crossed is curious, and 
difference of opinion exists as to the cause, but I believe it illustrates very 
well the phenomena of self and cross-fertilisation. Self-fertilisation, like in- 
and-in breeding, tends to degeneracy, while cross-fertilisation affords a 
corrective stimulus and a means of escape from a too narrow specialisation. 
This covers—and I intended it to cover when explained at page 60—not 
only distinct species, but distinct varieties and races, and even individuals 
of distinct ancestry that may possess certain features in common, albinism 
for example, and the limitation afterwards made to albinos of distinct 
species was not mine. We have seen by the photographs at pp. 104, 105, 
that P. bellatulum album x insigne Sander does not yield albinos, as it 
ought to have done under the theory of ‘‘ complementary colour factors,” 
and I believe that a much simpler explanation meets the case. The colour 
factor, even on that explanation, is simply the return of something that was 
there before, and may be regarded as a return to the normal. On this 
explanation P. x Maudiz behaves like a self-fertilised plant, but in any 
case it is anomalous, as it behaves differently from the other five. One 
cannot lightly throw P. insigne Sander overboard on the ground that it is 
not a pure albino—the point is that it maintains its character when self- 
fertilised, but reverts when crossed. In some cases albinos of distinct 
species when intercrossed have yielded both albinos and coloured forms out 
of the same capsule, and such are clearly examples of that dissociation of 
