CCXViii rEOCEEDTNGS OF TflE EvOYAL HORTICULTTTEAL 80CTETY. 



V.M.H., to recommend the award of a Certificate of Appreciation to 

 Mr. Sutton for his work in connexion with these peas. 



Interesting Orchids. — Mr. O'Brien, Y.M.H., showed some interest- 

 ing orchids on behalf of the Eev. Mr. Fletcher, including Bulbophyllum 

 Medusae, Catasetum Gnomiis of Eeichenbach, and a species of Efi- 

 dendrum which Mr. Eolfe later identified as E. Harrisoniae, Hook. 

 (Bot. Mag. t. 8392), a native of Brazil, and a somewhat variable 

 plant. 



Primula farinosa. — Mr. Gordon, V.M.H., remarked that he had 

 noticed a form of Primula farinosa in the Alps with a distinct white 

 centre to the flower, and with the tips of the petals pink. He dug 

 the plant up, but the new flowers came more and more like the type, 

 until the last ones were entirely like it. 



Malformation of Cattleya lahiata. — Mr. Wilson, F.L.S., exhibited 

 flowers of Cattleya lahiata showing false peloria, produced on a plant 

 which each year bears malformed flowers, though not always mal- 

 formed in the same fashion as in the present case. 



Ceropegias. — Mr. Ledger exhibited a flowering spray of Ceropegia 

 X RotJiii Giirke, a new hybrid raised by Dr. Paul Eoth, of Bernburg, 

 from seed obtained in 1908 by crossing C. Sandersonii, Hook., with 

 pollen of C. radicans, Schleet, two South African species. It is a 

 twining succulent, with fleshy leaves, intermediate between both 

 parents. The flowers resemble those of tile seed parent in colour; but 

 the umbrella-like apex in that species is here modified to erect, replicate 

 lobes, cohering at the top, somewliat as in C. hyhrida, N. E. Br. (in 

 Gardeners' Chronicle, December 8, 1906, p. 383), a flower of which 

 was also shown. Mr. Ledger stated that, in describing the last-named 

 plant, Mr. N. E. Brown drew attention to the peculiar structure of the 

 Asclepiads, unique among Dicotyledons in having the pollen aggluti- 

 nated into a waxy mass, and so placed that pollination would seem to 

 be only possible through insect agency, and that to effect it artificially 

 would, if at all possible, prove a very delicate and difficult operation. 

 Dr. Eoth has, however, successfully accomplished, in this instance, 

 the first artificial hybridization to be recorded in the genus Geropegia. 

 The plant is described in Monatsschrift fiir Kakteenhunde, for January 

 1911, pp. 8-9. Mr. Ledger also showed a flowering spray of 

 C. Rendallii, N. E. Br., a slender-growing, tuberous-rooted species. 

 The corolla lobes of the delicate and beautiful flowers are united into 

 an umbrella-like canopy, of a bright-green colour, supported on five 

 short stalks over the mouth of the tube, which is white in the upper 

 part and grey-green in the inflated base. This species belongs to the 

 section which includes Sandersonii, Monteiroae, and the not-yet-intro- 

 duced fimhriata. C. Rendallii was first sent to Kew early in the year 

 1894, by the late Dr. P. Eendall, of Barberton, after whom it was 

 named. (Kew Bulletin, 1894, p. 100.) Long lost to cultivation, a 

 tuber (without name) was sent in 1908 by Mr. George Tliorncroft, of 

 Barberton, to the late Mr. W. E. Gumbleton, who presented it to Mr. 

 Ledger, and from this all the " plants at present grown are derived. 



