﻿THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



[January, 1904. 



ORCHID HYBRIDIZATION. 



I have derived great pleasure from reading your articles on " Orchid 

 Hybridization," as they have appeared from time to time, and feel sure they 

 supply a long-felt want. On page 217 you say of sowing seeds "another 

 method is to pack some living sphagnum moss in a pot, and over this 

 stretch a piece of moderately fine canvas on which the seeds are sown," &c. 



M\ < < - t, * ••• IK I 1 i\t 1 



the best results sown on what we in Lancashire call " thick twill calico." 

 I take a sin. pot and fill it full of living moss rather tightly ; then take a 

 piece of the calico large enough to cover the whole of the moss. This I 

 place flat on my hand, then turn the moss out of the pot on to it, wrapping 

 it completely round the moss, then drop it into the pot again, making the 

 top firm and slightly rounded by pushing the calico down the sides of the 

 pot with a label, until the surface is quite even. One great advantage of 

 this method is that so long us there is any moisture in the moss the 

 absorbent qualities of the cloth will communicate it evenly over the 

 surface, so that if by am chance the pots are neglected a day or two no 

 serious results occur. Four pots of Cattleya and Latlia seeds sown as 

 above this summer have come up so thickly as to give one the j r ni 

 that every possible seed had germinated. 



HYBRIDS OF ODONTOGLOSSUM CRISPUM. 



We commenced the illustrations in our last volume with a series of 

 varieties of the beautiful Odontoglossum crispum, showing the remarkable 

 range of variation it presents, and we may commence the present one by 

 bringing together a series of its hybrids, showing how remarkably diverse 

 some of them are : which, of course, arises from the great diversity between 

 the species with which it will hybridise. Five of those represented are 

 natural hybrids, and two have been raised artificially, and it is interesting 

 to trace the influence of the O. crispum parent in the different forms. It is 

 needless to say that the series is not complete, but in any case it is a very 

 remarkable one, which for interest and beauty it would be difficult to match 

 in any other group. O. crispum seems to hybridise with remarkable 

 facility in a wild state, as hybrids occur between it and almost every other 

 Odontoglossum with which it grows, and it is extremely probable that 

 secondary hybrids also occur, though such plants are exceedingly difficult to 

 recognise unless their history is known. There has, however, for a long 

 period been reason to suspect that some of the so-called " blotched 

 crispums " have such an origin, and it is to be hoped that further light 

 will soon be thrown on the origin of these very puzzling plants. 



