ORCHID CONFERENCE . 



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hololeuca he thought was almost distinct enough to rank as a 

 species. The flower was different, the column was different, the 

 wings were more widely spread, and the lips were shallower ; 

 and yet Mr. Kidley called that a simple garden variety. Then 

 as regards Caloyyne cristata Lemoniana, it was distinct as regarded 

 the colour. These should be named as botanical species. He 

 did not know why Orchids should be singled out as being so very 

 difficult to understand, or as being in such a confusion, because 

 he thought if they would take other classes of plants they would 

 find the same thing, and if they abolished botanical names for 

 Orchids they should abolish them for all. 



Mr. Ridley said that with regard to the forms of Cattleya 

 lab lata, which he thought was the first thing Mr. Goldring 

 mentioned, he followed Professor Eeichenbach. He never 

 meant to say that he considered C. Tnancn and those distinct 

 varieties as anything but varieties. Professor Reichenbach 

 separated the species of Cattleya labiata into varieties in two 

 ways, according to form and according to colour, so that they 

 might take their choice. He kept the Triana and Mossia, and 

 one or two others, separate as varieties, and he (Mr. Ridley) was 

 quite prepared to do the same, but he could not consider them 

 species at all, not species in the usually accepted sense of the word. 

 As to the charge that he went simply by dried specimens, he 

 should like it to be known that in the Natural History Museum 

 there were, he was sorry to say, very few specimens indeed 

 of the cultivated forms of Cattleya. He had been trying to get 

 them. Nobody would take the trouble to dry them. They 

 were very difficult to get ; the gardeners were rather shy of 

 cutting the flowers to make herbarium specimens. Further- 

 more, he was perfectly agreed with Mr. Goldring in his statement 

 that it was very difficult to make out species of Cattleya from 

 dried specimens. He did not go by them, but by the living 

 plants and by drawings, and, of course, by good drawings one 

 could go almost as well as by the living plant. 



Professor Michael Foster said he felt very great diffidence in 

 speaking on the subject, because he was absolutely ignorant of 

 Orchids ; but he also felt that Dr. Masters spoke entirely the truth 

 when he said that this difficulty with regard to Orchids was one 

 which was met with in the case of all plants which had to be 

 cultivated by gardeners. He also agreed with Dr. Masters that 



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