ORCHID CONFERENCE. 



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some measure descriptive, but when put into practice this is 

 frequently found to be unworkable. Still the namer of any 

 plant should do his best to make the name expressive of some- 

 thing connected therewith, as for instance the discoverer, or the 

 place of discovery, or the colour. Quintinye, in his " Instructions 

 pour les Jardins," dated 1697, suggests, in treating of the names 

 of Pinks, that the fancy names should denote the colours of the 

 flowers. Thus he would call a grey and purple kind, the Grand 

 Provincial, or the Grave Philosopher, or General Peter, the 

 initial letter giving the initials of the colours in the flower. 

 The difficulty of such a plan lies in the fact that namers never 

 will conform to anything of the kind, and that such names are 

 only of use in the country in which they are written. 



Another very important necessity is that of regulating the 

 nomenclature of hybrids. They are usually treated as species, 

 and receive classical names in no way denoting their origin. In 

 wild hybrids this is in a measure excusable, as it is frequently 

 very difficult to discover, on finding a plant intermediate between 

 two species, whether it is a connecting link or a natural hybrid, 

 but in garden hybrids, the parents of which are known, it is 

 much to be deprecated. Certain names, it is true, denote the 

 garden origin of the plants, such as Cattleya exoniensis x , and 

 who would doubt that Cypripeclinm Sedeni x was anything but a 

 cultural hybrid. 



The usual way in scientific works of denoting a hybrid is by 

 compounding the name, as Carex axillari-remota. This may be 

 shortened by cutting off portions of the two words and making a 

 compactor name, but the only instance I can recall of this 

 method is that of Philageria, a name invented by Dr. Masters 

 for a hybrid between the two genera Lapageria and Philesia. 

 This plan it seems to me should be always adopted in the case 

 of hybrids between two genera. In some cases it would certainly 

 be rather difficult to get a neat name compounded out of the two, 

 but such names as Catlselia and Sophro-cattleya are not worse 

 than many generic names, such as Cienkowskia, Warscwiczella, 

 &c, with which we have to deal. So confused is the present 

 nomenclature of these generic hybrids that we have known plants 

 of which the parentage is mainly Cattleya called Lrelias, as for 

 instance, Laalia Dominiana rosea. This is stated to have been 

 raised from Cattleya exoniensis x , itself crossed with C. Dowiana ; 



