M r Mitchell at one of the Manchester shows, in May 1877, is said to hâve been 
two feet across, and to hâve been smothered with hundreds of its beautiful flowers. 
The same cross has been raised upon more than one occasion. Plants are 
said to hâve appeared in the Fairfield Nursery, near Manchester, about the same 
time as those in D r Ainsworth’s collection ; and others hâve appeared at a later 
date. D. X splendidissimum , perhaps the finest hybrid which has yet appeared, 
has the same parentage, though the flowers hâve rather more of the D. nobile 
character. They are exceptionally large and brilliantly coloured. It was raised 
by Messrs James Veitch & Sons, of Chelsea. D. X Leechianum , which was raised 
in the collection of M r W. Leech, of Fallowfield, near Manchester, is from the 
reversed cross, but is smaller than the preceding, which it otherwise much 
resembles. 
D. x Ainsworthii has itself been used for hybridising purposes. Crossed with 
the pollen of D. Findlayanum , in the collection of Sir Trevor Lawrence, 
Bart., M. P., of Burford Lodge, Dorking, it has yielded the handsome secondary 
hybrid, D. X chrysodiscus; while the reverse cross has yielded D. X melanodiscus , 
in the same collection. These two secondary hybrids are extremely diverse from 
each other, so much so that their real origin could scarcely hâve been guessed, 
had it not been carefully recorded, a proceding which should never be neglected. 
Another point worthy of mention is that of four plants of D. X chrysodiscus , no 
two were alike in their flowers, a circumstance to which secondary hybrids seem 
especially liable. 
R. A. Rolfe. 
