NOTES ON SOME CURIOSITIES OF ORCHID BREEDING. 



445 



A few years ago Mr. Chas. Winn, of Selly Hill, Birmingham, 

 showed me a large number of C. x Leeanum in flower, which 

 were raised by him from C.insigne Chantini and C. Spicerianum. 

 Hardly any two plants were alike in colour or spotting, and they 

 also varied in the shape of the upper sepal, some being much 

 more reflexed than others ; and one might easily have picked out 

 from this batch of seedlings many well-marked varieties, includ- 

 ing the typical C. x Leeanum, C. x L. superbum, and C. x L. 

 giganteum, to say nothing of intermediate forms and minor 

 varieties. We need not, however, be surprised at this when we 

 learn that one of the parents, C. insigne Chantini, though a well- 

 marked variety, is not a constant one from seed. 



Mr. W. Grey, for Hon. Erastus Corning, Albany, New 

 York, U.S.A., raised seedlings of C. insigne Chantini fertilised 

 with its own pollen, and produced thirty different varieties from 

 one pod (Orch. Rev. ii. p. 227) ; so that C. insigne Chantini is 

 evidently a variety " with a past," and when crossed with 

 C. Spicerianum its history tends to repeat itself, and many forms 

 of C. x Leeanum are the result. 



On the other hand, we know that some varieties are quite 

 constant from seed, for Mr. Norman Cookson, of Wylam-on- 

 Tyne, fertilised C. Lawrenceanum Hyeanum (a so-called 

 " albino ") with its own pollen ; and of the plants raised there- 

 from three have already flowered true to the parent variety 

 Gard. Ghron. January 16, 1897, p. 37, fig. 8), so that C. L. 

 Hyeanum is evidently a variety without a past," and for a few 

 generations its history must have been regular and consistent : 

 it consequently breeds true to colour, and would no doubt set its 

 peculiar mark on its offspring if crossed with another species, in 

 the same way as we have seen that C. insigne Sander® has done 

 in C. x Leeanum 'Prospero,' and C. insigne Wallacei in C. x 

 Leeanum Albertianum. 



Eevekse Crosses. 



It sometimes happens (especially when only a few plants have 

 been raised of a particular cross) that the reverse cross (B 5 x 

 A ^ instead of A 5 x B $ ) produces hybrids differing in variety 

 from the original cross, and many people have immediately come 

 to the conclusion that this variation was due to the parents being 

 reversed. But, as can easily be perceived, this does not 



