54 
THE ORCHID WORLD. 
[December, 1912. 
The parents of the following examples 
contain purple on the one side and yellow 
upon the other, and the nearer these colours 
are to pure pale purple and pure yellow, the 
greater is the proportion of whites obtained. 
Dendrobium Wiganiae xanthochilon crossed 
with D. Thwaitesias produced flowers some 
with rose, some with violet, some with yellow, 
and some with white sepals and petals, 
showing that there were not only two but 
several factors involved. 
The same results were obtained by ciossing 
Dendrobium Wiganiae xanthochilon with D. 
Rubens, whilst from D. Wiganiae crossed with 
D. Wiganis xanthochilon a number of the 
seedlings raised had either white or cream- 
white sepals and petals. 
Dendrobium Findlayanum crossed with D. 
Wiganiae produced the same re.sults, except 
that in the white varieties there was a faint 
trace of colour on the tips of the sepals and 
petals. 
Cattleya Dowiana aurea crossed with C. 
Trian^ albens produced C. Maggie Raphael 
with whitish sepals and petals in very large 
proportions. 
I believe that all white Orchids in Nature 
are produced from colour, their scarcity being 
due to the rare chance of Nature selecting and 
blending the colours so as to produce white. 
So soon as one attempts to obtain white 
seedlings from white parents there is con- 
siderable disappointment. Whites mated 
together will sometimes produce white, but 
coloured flowers have frequently resulted. 
The following parents have flowered white 
year after year, and have, without exception, 
produced white progeny : — 
Dendrobium nobile virginale fertilised with 
its own pollen. 
Cattleya labiata alba crossed with another 
C. labiata alba. 
Cattleya Mossias Wagneri fertilised with its 
own pollen. 
Cattleya Mossia? Wagneri crossed with 
another C. Mossiae Wagneri. 
Cattleya intermedia alba crossed with C. 
Mossiae Wagneri. 
Laslia pumila alba fertilised with its own 
pollen. 
1 have never had white and coloured 
flowers from the same crossing of whites. 
The results have always been all white, or all 
coloured. 
The following produced flushed flowers 
without exception : — 
Dendrobium Wiganianum album crossed 
with D. nobile virginale. 
Cattleya labiata Amesiana crossed with C. 
labiata R. I. Measures. 
Cattleya Schroder^ alba crossed with C. 
Mossia Wagneri. 
Cattleya Gaskelliana alba crossed with C. 
Harrisoniana alba. 
Cattleya Gaskelliana alba crossed with C. 
Mendelii alba. 
All these crosses were made m the hope of 
obtaining white flowers. In the light of after 
experiences, however, the explanation of the 
disappointment appeared. 
Although the Cattleya Harrisoniana, the 
C. Mendelii, and the C. Schroderae were, so 
far as the eye was concerned, the true albinos 
of their class at the time they were used as 
parents, upon flowering them later all were 
seen to have a slight flush of colour, that is to 
say, they were not fixed whites ; they had 
reverted towards their type. The Dendrobium 
Wiganianum was not a true albino m that it 
had two faint lines of colour in the throat, 
although it received an Award of Merit as D. 
Wiganianum album ; and both the Cattleya 
labiata Amesiana and the C. labiata R. I. 
Measures had coloured lips. 
As an instance that it is possible for a plant 
to flower white one year and coloured 
another, and to exonerate myself for allowing 
these failures to be recorded as failures to 
obtain white from white, I call your attention 
to the plant Cattleya Trianae Mrs. Edward 
Sondheim ; the flowers of this when I first saw 
them were pure white, and, as such, received 
a First-class Certificate from the Royal Horti- 
cultural Society. The drawing, which was 
made of it at the time, shows it as a pure 
albino, but it has since flowered coloured. 
How, then, is one to account for this reversion 
towards the type? 
I believe that the colours one sees in 
Orchid flowers are produced upon the surface 
