NOTES ON SOME CURIOSITIES OF ORCHID BREEDING. 451 



the building up of the future individual, it is manifest that the 

 hybrid C. x Leeanum is of necessity an equal blending of its 

 two parent species. 



Curiosities. 



Occasionally, when two species are crossed, the offspring 

 resemble the mother species only, having no trace of the father 

 species or any other modifying influence. I have found eleven 

 such cases recorded during the past four or five years, and 

 through the kindness of several correspondents and the editor of 

 the Orchid Bcviciu I am able to give details and particulars of 

 five of these cases. 



(1) In May 1891 Mr. Reginald Young, of Sefton Park, 

 Liverpool, crossed Cypripedium barbatum $ with pollen of 

 C. niveum c?. The pod duly ripened, and fourteen plants were 

 raised, of which nine have already flowered. Strange to say, 

 every one of the nine has flowered C. barbatum, like the mother 

 species, without a trace of the father parent, C. niveum, either 

 in the flowers or leaves. The same cross has been made at 

 least twice before by Messrs. Veitch & Sons (Gardeners 

 Chronicle, November 27, 1886), and by Mr. W. Bull, of 

 Chelsea (Gardeners' Chronicle, December 20, 1888), both of 

 which produced the true hybrid C. x Tautzianum, and in which 

 the father species, C. niveum, was strongly represented in both 

 flower and foliage. (See col. fig. Reichenbachia, ii. t. 65.) 



(2) Curiously enough, Mr. Young had a somewhat similar 

 experience with another cross. In March 1892 he crossed 

 C. callosum $ with pollen of C. x microchilum, and in due time 

 twelve plants were raised, one of which flowered last May 1897, 

 producing two flowers on one scape, which were practically 

 indistinguishable from the mother species, C. callosum. 



(3) Some years ago Mr. Charles Winn crossed a flower of 

 C. venustum 5 with pollen of C. concolor^ . Eighteen seedlings 

 were raised, five of which flowered pure C. venustum without a 

 trace of C. concolor. (M>. Winn did not wait for the other plants 

 to flower, but threw them away.) (Orchid Beview, iii. 

 p. 240 ; in litt., September 20, 1897.) The same cross 

 had been made before by Messrs. Veitch & Sons (Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, 1875, p. 804 ; Orchid Album, t. 418) and by Mr. 

 Robert Grey for Mr. H. Graves, of Orange, New Jersey, U.S.A. 

 (American Gardening, March 23, 1895), in both of which the 



