HYBRID ORCHIDS. 
183 
growing sphagnum in it it is clipped back ; the seeds are 
sprinkled over the surface, the record label attached corresponding 
with the entry in the stock-book, and the plant is watered as 
usual, but wuth care not to wash the minute seeds off, and rain¬ 
water is always used for hybrids in all stages. Many seeds are 
wasted of course, as they would be if self-sown in the tropics, and 
with a view to the inevitable in this direction nature has supplied 
the capsules with innumerable seeds to meet the risks. 
One of the most fruitful causes of failure in raising hybrid 
Orchids is that low forms of vegetation, generally known to the 
gardener as “Moss,” are apt to spread over the surface of the 
material on which the seeds are sown, or on which the tiny little 
fleshy discs tell of the first step towards obtaining plants having 
been successful. In such cases the whole of an interesting cross 
has often been lost, and to endeavour to escape it the energies of 
all Orchid hybridists are employed. The fact that these low 
forms of vegetable life always, and naturally, appear on freshly 
prepared surfaces is the great argument against making up pots 
of peat and other Orchid potting material on which to sow the 
seeds when ready ; for in such cases, unless some means to prevent 
it has been resorted to, the Moss gets ahead of the germinating 
seeds and young plants, and destruction results. 
Sterilisation, by either baking or pouring boiling water over 
the peat to be used for making up the seed pans, is generally 
practised by those who elect to sow them in pans or pots not 
already containing plants, and of the two methods probably 
boiling, or the use of boiling water, is the better, for by that 
means the fibre is not rendered brittle, and liable to pass into 
very fine soil, which the seeds do not like, as it is by the process 
of baking. In making up the seed pans care should be taken 
that both the crocks used and the pots themselves shall be per¬ 
fectly clean, and in filling in the material the pots should be 
crocked half-way up, and the finer portions of the peat placed on 
the top layer on which to sow the seeds. 
Sphagnum Moss should not be used or very sparingly, so far 
as my observation goes, and the pots on which the seeds are sown 
and the young plants are growing should either be suspended or 
placed on a shelf near the glass of the roof. A Wardian case is 
advocated by some as a means to hasten and ensure the quick 
germination of the seeds. Where such a contrivance is used I 
