355 Commonwealthi Avenue, Boston, Mass. 
Movember 20 th, 1922. 
My dear Mr. Lankester: 
Your letter of the fourth arrived 
this morning. Your remarks regarding the absurdity of 
forcing Caltleya into Epidendrum held my attention. Keioh- 
onbach did this in Walpers’ Annales, vol. 6. At on© time 
X thought he was off on a silly tangent, but I am not so 
sure about this now. If you hold a specimen of Epl den drum 
rlgldam beside a specimen of Cattleya lablata and assert 
that these species represent genera which are so closely 
allied that taxonomic separation is difficult, the "man in 
the street” is justified in any sign of horror that he may 
experience. And yet, viewed as a whole the genera of the 
Epidendrum alliance exhibit suoh close interweaving of 
characters that attempts at generic oleavage result in the 
union of unlike elements. I write this feelingly, because 
I have bean struggling for days in the effort to make a key 
to the Central American species and genera. I feel that 
Cattleys is distinct from Epidendrum, but I cannot make it 
so for the uninitiated, that is for the man who ha3 no trad¬ 
itional convictions and who has no preoonoeivad ideas, fry 
yourself to make a key that will hold. Aside from thee purely 
taxonomic aspect of the subjeot, there is the perplexing nom- 
enclatorial one. Epidendrum has as its type species Epidendrum 
Vanilla which is not an Epidendrum. Eeoently Epidendrum has 
been split up into numerous small genera, but I am unable to 
