cxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE. 



May 9, 1911. 



Mr. E. A. Bowles, M.A., F.L.S., F.E.S., in the Chair, and 

 thirteen members present. 



Gongora Tracyana. — This plant, shown at the meeting on April 26 

 by Messrs. Tracy and referred to Kew, proved to be an undescribed 

 species, to which the name of G. Tracyana Eolfe has been given. It 

 was unanimously resolved to recommend the award of a Botanical 

 Certificate on the ground of its novelty. 



Oncoha Routledgei. — The plant recommended for a Botanical Cer- 

 tificate under the name of Oncoha spinosa var. Routledgei at the meet- 

 ing on April 26 had been further examined at Kew, and it has nov/ 

 been made a separate species and named 0. Routledgei. (Fig. 70.) 



Malformed Odontoglossum. — A spike of a form of Odontoglossmn 

 crispum from Sir Julius Wernher, of Luton Hoo, bearing several mal- 

 formed flowers, as well as others of a normal character, was referred to 

 Mr. Worsdell, who reported as follows : — " The balance of the spike is 

 quite upset. Most of the flowers are normal, however. The peculiar 

 structure present is due to a compromise between "two tendencies (1) 

 that making for reduction or fusion, and (2) that making for multiplica- 

 tion of parts. There is no evidence at all for actual synanthy or for the 

 ' passing of one part of a flower into the next, ' as the spatial distribution 

 of the flowers on the spike appears to be normal. On the other hand, 

 there is an equal absence of evidence that an increase in the number of 

 flowers on the spike is occurring. In one flower there is a remarkable 

 case of 'positive dedouhlement ' ; four sepals, uppermost (posterior) 

 forked; four ordinary petals (which might have resulted from forking 

 of the lateral ones) ; one of these four lies exactly in the median plane 

 (anterior) ; two labella forming with the column a whorl of three within 

 the four ordinary petals ; the column is double below, but triple above 

 (there being three anthers). One anther is becoming petaloid. Owing 

 to the causes above mentioned the flower comes to have a larger number 

 of members than usual ; and the composition of the whorls is altered, 

 owing to the fact that, under the circumstances, the members must be 

 more or less rearranged, so as to obey the law of alternations. In the 

 second flower there are three normal sepals, but the anterior one is in 

 structure and appearance intermediate between a sepal and a petal, as it 

 has the brown blotches of the former ; but it is lighter in colour than 

 the sepals and has a slight tendency to be fringed at the margin like a 

 petal ; there is no present evidence as to its origin, but it perhaps arose 

 by division of the normal sepals, two labella forming with the double 

 column a whorl of three. In the third flower the reductive or fusion 



