18 



REPORT ON THE 



by Dr. Masters that these few remarks should be called an 

 address, but as I am not so accustomed to make addresses as my 

 friend Dr. Masters is, and as I have really never made anything 

 but a political address, I venture to confine myself to the word 

 " remarks," and I can only hope you will forgive their exceedingly 

 discursive and not very interesting nature. (" No, no," and 

 applause.) Now, ladies and gentlemen, the first business that we 

 have to-day is to read the communication from Professor 

 Reichenbach. This communication only arrived yesterday, and, 

 as I have not had time to read it over beforehand, perhaps you 

 will forgive me if I make any small mistakes. (Hear, hear.) 



The President then read the following communication from 

 Professor Reichenbach : — 



I. On Proliferous Roots of Orchids. 



There have been various records of buds originated on roots 

 of Orchids, lately in the instances quoted by Messrs. Lendy and 

 Salter. 



I have long attached great interest to this case, though I 

 have made but few observations, only one plant having often 

 showed me this method of propagation. It is the Bird's-nest 

 Orchid (Xeottia nidus avis), which very often perishes after having 

 flowered, while in other cases it produces fresh shoots from the 

 axils of certain sheaths. In other cases it brings a fresh plant 

 at the very top of a root fibre. I saw this in 1849, when I 

 observed the fact at Tharand. I learned very late it had been 

 observed before by J. P. E. Vaucher in 1841 ; after Yaucher 

 and me it was seen by Irnisch, Prilleux, Hofmeister, who got it 

 from me ; then it was formally denied by Drude and re-observed 

 and neatly described by Eugen Warming, the excellent Scandi- 

 navian botanist. 



The second case was observed in my Phalanopsis delieiosa, 

 gathered in 1843 by Zollinger. My specimen shows a young 

 plant on a root having just emitted such a small rootlet of its 

 own as described by Mr. Salter. The specimen can be seen in 

 my herbarium. 



The third case is a sad one. A Cyrtopodium (if I remember 

 rightly a Savannah plant from Venezuela) gave a fine shoot from 

 a root in Consul Schiller's collection, under Mr. Schmidt's able 

 management, I believe, in 1867. I watched it carefully. Finally 

 a young assistant gardener broke it accidentally and threw the 



