June, 1914-] 



THF-: ORCHID WORM). 



199 



ANOMALIES IN HYBRIDISING. 



I BOUGHT at Mr. Wilson Potter's sale, 

 May 13th, 1908, Odontoglossum 

 triumphans aureum, which was 

 formerly in Mr. A. H. Smee's collection at 

 Wallington. The plant was in flower, but 

 not sufficiently strong to bear a pod. The 

 pollen was used, so far as I remember, on (i) 

 Od. luteopurpureum Vuylstekeanum ; (2) a 

 plain " white " Pescatorei ; (3) armamvil- 

 lierense xanthotes (Charier, w-orth"); (4) 

 crispum xanthotes. These last two pods 

 either went off, or, if we raised any seedlings, 

 they were lost. They pass out of my story 

 and leave me only with crosses i and 2. Both 

 these flowered this spring, the Pescatorei x 

 triumphans ( = excellens) being the first. 



I made the cross, of course, with a view of 

 getting a deep yellow excellens. Od. 

 triumphans aureum was awarded a F.C.C., 

 R.H.S., April 22nd, 1890. It still remains, I 

 believe, the most beautiful of all the albino 

 forms of triumphans, and as regards colour, 

 it possesses a glorious honey-yellow ground 

 on which blotches of a deeper yellow are 

 superimposed ; unfortunately it is utterly 

 lacking in shape. 



I hoped then to get a very yellow excellens 

 — yellow ground and yellow blotches instead 

 of brown ; that any forms would appear 

 having decent shape seemed most improbable. 

 The result was surprising. Of about eighteen 

 plants that have flowered so far, none has 

 had any shape, nor does any one of them 

 show that the yellow of the triumphans 

 aureum has had the smallest effect on the 

 progeny. I have bred the very worst form of 

 the ordinary excellens — small flowers of bad 

 shape, profusely spotted with the dark brown 

 blotches of a typical triumphans. 



After seeing one or two of these failures 

 T betook myself to Mr. Charlesworth, who 

 has, I think, a greater practical knowledge of 

 hybridising than anyone in the country, and 

 poured out my tale of woe. It was to the 

 effect that I had put the yellow triumphans 

 on to a white Pescatorei, and had bred a very 

 bad darkly blotched excellens. " But wait a 

 moment," Mr. Charlesworth said, " was your 



Pescatorei really and truly a pure white? 

 Was there the faintest trace of colour in the 

 flower?" I admitted that I was onl}' 

 speaking in general terms in calling the 

 Pescatorei white ; the flower was unspotted, 

 practically white with a very faint tinge of 

 violet or mauve on the sepals. "Very well," 

 my mentor replied, " so long as there was the 

 least colour in the Pescatorei you were certain 

 to get a dark coloured and not an albino 

 excellens." 



Now we all know the danger of trying to 

 raise whites from parents that deviate in the 

 smallest degree from absolute albinos. I 

 have a Cattleya Gaskelliana alba which has 

 just the faintest suggestion of flushing on the 

 lip, so faint that it takes a great deal of 

 finding. I have always been afraid to use 

 this Cattleya either as a seed or pollen parent 

 on that ground. If I crossed it with, say, a 

 C. Mossia? Wageneri I fear T should get 

 coloured seedlings owing to the Gaskelliana 

 reverting to the coloured type in the 

 offspring. But I should not have supposed 

 that the colour sap in the Gaskelliana would 

 take upon itself the quite unnecessary duty 

 of poisoning the white Mossiee as well nnd 

 turning that back to the typical coloured 

 form. Yet that is exactly what has happened 

 in the case of my excellens. There was verv 

 little colour in the Pescatorei to start with. 

 T was prepared to find this colour, or even 

 more, to come out in the hybrid. It might 

 have turned itself into a spotted Pescatorei 

 for all I cared, so long as it let the triumphans 

 alone. Not a bit of it ! The colour sap in 

 the Pescatorei seizes on the beautiful yellow 

 spots of the triumphans aureum and turns 

 them into the ugly brown of the type. Why ? 

 Why on earth should it do a criminal deed 

 like this? Can science explain? 



Why does C. Mossiae Reineckiana breed 

 true, that is keeping white sepals and petals 

 in the progeny, if mated with a white? Here 

 is a highly coloured lip, and, after all, the lip 

 is only a modified petal, which repeats itself 

 in the hybrids, leaving the sepals and petals 

 unaffected. Messrs. Mansell and Hatcher 

 received a F.C.C. for Cattleya Empress 

 Frederick alba, which they exhibited at the 



