388 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE CARDERER. 
t May 14, 1885. 
menclature being the subjects most fittingly chosen for elucida¬ 
tion. Such was the project, and to the second question—“ Has 
the Conference accomplished its object?”—an emphatic affir¬ 
mative answer must be given. As an Exhibition it was highly 
successful, the papers submitted were of a specially interesting 
character, and the discussion elicited many additional facts of 
importance. The Council of the Royal Horticultural Society, 
and the Committee, therefore merit the thanks of all orchidists 
for the initiation and satisfactory execution of the scheme. 
We have previously given the programme, but it may be 
appropriately repeated now. 
PROGRAMME OF THE EXHIBITION. 
Class I.—Collections of Orchids in flower. 
Class II.—Species and varieties of the genera Cattleya, Lselia, 
Odontoglossum, Masdevallia, and Cypripedium. 
Class III.—Species and varieties of the genera Oncidium, 
Epidendrum, Dendrobium, Yanda, Saccolabium, Aerides, and 
Stanhopea. 
Class IY.—Single plants of any Orchid. 
Class Y.—Hybrid Orchids— i.e., those raised by cross-ferti¬ 
lisation. It is hoped that the parents will be shown, if possible, 
with the hybrid. 
Class VI —Orchids in fruit. 
Class YIT. — 1, Orchids indigenous to Great Britain. 2, 
Hardy Orchids from any other countries. 2, Cut flowers of 
Orchids. 
Class VIII.—Materials, such as sphagnum and other mosses, 
peat and other soils, baskets, rafts, pots, pans, labels, &c., used 
in the cultivation of Orchids. 
PROGRAMME OF THE CONFERENCE, WEDNESDAY, 
MAY 13th, AT 10 30 a.m. 
Introductory Remarks by the President. 1, Communication 
from Prof. Reichenbach. 2, Discussion on the Hybridisation of 
Orchids. Opening paper by Mr. Harry J. Yeitch, F.L.S. 3, Dis¬ 
cussion on the Cultivation of Orchids. Opening Paper by 
Mr. J. O’Brien. 4, Discussion on the Nomenclature of Orchids. 
The chief work of the Conference was performed on Wednes¬ 
day, the Committee assembling in the Royal Albert Hall at 
10.30 p.m. to read the papers and conduct the discussion. The 
two principal papers we are enabled to give by the courtesy of 
the authors, and further particulars respecting the discussion 
will be given in a future issue. 
At the close of Mr. O’Brien’s paper, the President intimated 
that the Trustees of theVeitch Memorial had placed three medals 
at the disposition of the Royal Horticultural Society, to be 
awai’ded in such manner as the Committee of the Conference 
might think fit. One was awarded to Professor Reichenbach for 
his labours in connection with Orchids, one to the Rev. C. P. 
Parish, late of Moulmein, for numerous introductions of valuable 
Orchids, and the third to Mr. Seden, Messrs. Yeitch & Sons’ 
successful cultivator, for his assiduity and success in the 
hybridisation of Orchids. 
On Wednesday morning the Prince of Wales, attended by 
numerous gentlemen, visited the Exhibition. 
We make no apology for occupying so much space with 
Orchid matter this week, for few, if any, of our readers who 
are not orchidists can fail to be interested in these remarkable 
plants, and we will ask them to regard it as a dessert number 
after plainer and more substantial fare, of which there will again 
be no lack when the feast of flowers is over. 
HYBRIDISATION OF ORCHIDS. 
[Paper read at the Orchid Conference on May 13th by Mr. Harry J. Yeitch, F.L.S.] 
In a communication “ On Hybridisation among Vegetables,” by Dean 
Herbert of Manchester, published in 1847, in the second volume of the 
Journal of the Horticultural Society of London, I find the following re¬ 
markable passage :— 
“ Cross-breeding amongst Orchidaceous plants would perhaps lead to 
very startling results ; but, unfortunately, they are not easily raised from 
seed. I have, however, raised Bletia, Cattleya, Herminium monorchis, 
and Ophrys aranifera from seed ; and if I were not, during the greater 
part of the year, absent from the place where my plants are deposited, I 
think I could succeed in obtaining crosses in that order. I had well-formed 
pods last spring of Orchis by pollen of Ophrys, as well as of other species 
of .Orchis which had been forced ; and, if I had remained on the spot, I 
think I should have obtained some cross-bred orchidaceous seed. An in¬ 
telligent gardener may do much for science by attempts of this kind if 
he keeps accurate notes of what he attempts, and does not jump at imma¬ 
ture conclusions.” 
This is the earliest authentic information I have been able to obtain of 
attempts to raise new forms among Orchids by cross-breeding, and with 
what success the Dean himself has told us in his own words. At that 
time, and for some years afterwards, there was a prevalent notion among 
gardeners that muling among Orchids was an impossibility ; and, so far 
as I am aware, no one attempted it besides Dean Herbert till it was taken 
up by Dominy at our Exeter nursery about the year 1853. The cause of 
the prevalent belief of that age in the impossibility of hybridisation among 
Orchids is not, I think, far to seek. 
Dean Herbert was a man of science, and was well acquainted with the 
structure of Orchid flowers. To him their fertilisation by hand presented 
no difficulty ; to horticulturists and gardeners it was quite different.. Not 
only had they, in common with many others, not the slightest suspicion of 
the fertilisation of Orchids by insect agency ; but, moreover, very few of 
them possessed even an elementary knowledge of botany. They could, it 
is true, distinguish accurately the stamens and pistils of many flowers 
familiar to them, and they were aware of the functions of those organs, but 
the confluence of those organs into the solid column of an Orchid flower 
was to them a profound mystery. It was unfortunate, too, that Dean 
Herbert’s injunction to keep accurate notes of what was attempted was.not 
followed in the early days of Orchid hybridisation, whence the uncertainty 
that still hangs over the parentage of some of the earlier acquisitions. . 
It was Mr. John Harris, a surgeon of Exeter, who suggested to Dominy 
the possibility of muling Orchids, and who pointed out to him the repro¬ 
ductive organs seated in the column, and showed that the application of 
the pollinia to the stigmatic surface was analogous to the dusting ot the 
stigma of other flowers with pollen. This simple fact being once iairly 
grasped, the work of hybridisation proceeded apace. The flowers of 
showy species of Cattleya, Lmlia, Calanthe, &c., were fertilised with the 
pollinia of other species, and even the flowers of .supposed different, but 
of course allied, genera, were also operated upon in the same way. 
sules were produced in abundance, which in due course proved their 
maturity by dehiscing, and thus the long and anxiously desired seed was 
at length at hand. Then arose a great difficulty, a difficulty which still 
exists, and which our long experience has enabled us to make only a short 
step towards overcoming—to discover the most suitable method of raising 
seedlings and getting them established. The seeds of Orchids are minute 
chaffy bodies of extreme lightness. So minute are they that an ordinary 
pocket lens is powerless to enable one to know whether the seeds are 
likely to contain a germ or are mere lifeless dust. When growing wild 
it is evident that the contents of the mature capsules after dehiscence are 
more or less scattered by the wind, perhaps wafted to great distances 
until they settle on the branches of trees, on shelving rocks, or other suit- 
ig. 73.—Phalamopsis, 15 months. Fig. 74.—Phalasnopsis, 22 months; 
able situations where the seeds can germinate and the seedlings firmly 
affix themselves. Following, or at least believing that we were following, 
Nature so far as the altered circumstances of artificial cultivation allowed, 
every method or available means that could be thought of was brought 
into request to secure the germination of the seed. It was sown upon 
blocks of wood, pieces of tree-fern stems, strips of cork, upon the moss 
that surfaced the pots of the growing plants—in fact, in any situation that 
seemed to promise favourable results. But as it was in the eaily days of 
Orchid hybridisation, so it is now, we seem as far off as ever fiom hitting 
upon a method by which at least a moderate amount of success may be 
calculated upon ; failures were at first, as now, innumerable, and num¬ 
berless such are without doubt inevitable. Among the most cogent causes 
of failure in the raising of seedling Orchids, there can be no doubt that 
the altered conditions of climate, especially the deficiency of sunlight, 
and the art ficial treatment to which the plants are necessarily subject in 
the glass houses of Europe, are the greatest. The capsules neither can nor 
do attain the perfection natural to them in their native countries, and it is 
more than probable that, independently of the capsules grown in our 
houses being the production of cross-breeding, they do not yield a frac¬ 
tional part of the quantity of good seed they would do in their native 
land. And so with their progeny—the tender seedlings are brought into 
