Earl of Annesley, Castlewellan, Co. Down, Ireland (gardener, Mr. T. Ryan); (3) The Director, Royal Gardens, Kew; (4) Messrs. Jas. Veitch, Chelsea; (5) R. J. Lynch, Esq., Botanic Garden, Cambridge; (6) Trinity College Botanic Gardens, Dublin:

OBSERVATIONS ON SOME PLANTS EXHIBITED. By the Rev. Prof. G. HENSLOW, M.A., V.M.H., &c. [May 10, 1898.]

ALPINE PLANTS.-Mr. Henslow took as his subject for remarks some Alpine plants exhibited by Mr. Geo. Paul and Mr. Ware. He first called attention to the general characters of high Alpine and Arctic plants, in that they are dwarf in habit, mostly perennials, often with brilliantly coloured flowers, and sometimes characterised by a silky or woolly epidermis. These features are the result of the climatic conditions; as the same plants when grown in lowlands were often annuals, taller, and with less bright colours. The proportion of annuals continually decreases as the latitude or altitude increases, so that in Spitzbergen there are none. The dwarf habit has suggested the specific names of muscoides, i.e., "like moss," nana, i.e., "dwarf," &c. Certain families are especially well represented, as Primulacea and Gentianeæ, the former of which includes the original wild P. auricula, the basis of the hybrids forming the florist's flowers, of which a dried specimen was exhibited; our own P. farinosa and P. scotica, the former closely resembling its variety P. f. Magellanica, a specimen of which, brought by Mr. Darwin, showed the wide distribution of this species, as the only conceivable means of transit from the northern hemisphere was

along the Rocky Mountains and the Andes. Numerous species of Gentian are also characteristic of the European Alps, tall species as the medicinal G. lutea, four feet in height, being found on the lower slopes, and G. glacialis, about one inch high, occurring close to the perpetual snow. The Alpine Gentians are represented in Britain by Gentiana nivalis, at an elevation of 2,400-3,300 feet, on the Clova and Breadalbane mountains of Scotland, and G. verna of Westmoreland, &c., ascending to 2,400 feet. Other Alpine plants common to British mountains and of Switzerland are species of Saxifraga, as Saxifraga oppositifolia, &c.; Dryas octopetala, Alchemilla alpina, with silky leaves, species of Lycopodium, &c.

Prof. Henslow then explained how the same species are now only found in widely separated countries, as Great Britain, Pyrenees, Alps, Scandinavian Mountains, and in the Arctic regions. After the great Glacial epoch, when the climate of North Europe, including the British Isles, resembled the present condition of Greenland or Spitzbergen, the temperature became less severe, and Arctic plants (which had been driven southwards by the advancing ice and low temperature) were able to extend their distribution. The climate, however, continued to become more and more temperate; and as the ice all disappeared fron our mountains the temperate flora spread westwards from the continent, while the Arctic flora, dying out from the lowlands, ascended, and became isolated upon the higher parts of the mountains, where they now exist. The land subsequently sankwhere the German Ocean and the Channel now flow-and so the British Isles were formed, being cut off from the mainland.

DOUBLE FLOWERS.-Some double wood Anemones and furze supplied material for a few observations on the process of "doubling" as compared with the "symmetrical increase" of parts, which has now become a hereditary feature in the florist's Auriculas exhibited. In the former there is a conversion of stamens and carpels into petals, with their subsequent multiplication. In the latter case some of, or all the whorls of the flower are regularly increased in the number of their parts; so that if five be the normal number, there may be whorls of sixes, sevens, or even eights. On the other hand, by insufficiency, instead of a superabundance of nourishment, the numbers might be reduced to fours and threes, or even twos. Thus fours to sixes

might often be found on the same corymb of Elder-flowers. Earlyflowering Fuchsias were frequently in threes instead of fours, while Orchids and Irises might sometimes be found in twos.

HYBRID ORCHIDS.

By Mr. JAMES O'BRIEN, V.M.H.

[Read June 14, 1898.]

PUBLISHED in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society's Report of the Orchid Conference, 1885, we have the admirable lecture on hybrid Orchids by the best authority in the country, Mr. Harry J. Veitch; and in the recently issued number, April 1898, will be found an exhaustive paper, compiled by Mr. C. C. Hurst, entitled "Notes on Some Curiosities of Orchid Breeding." In the former paper the structure of Orchid flowers, the process of fertilisation, and other matters relating to the raising of Orchids from seeds are fully dealt with; and in the more recent paper a remarkable collection of curious facts and conjectures concerning the strange things brought about by cross-breeding are placed on record.

In the present paper, in view of the number of Orchid growers who attempt to raise hybrid Orchids from seeds, but who either fail altogether or get but very poor results, I purpose making a few brief remarks, dealing with the question from a cultural point of view. Having been honorary secretary of the Orchid Committee for a number of years, I have had the opportunity of seeing the many beautiful hybrids which follow each other in rapid succession, and I have been struck by the pointed examples which they give, and continually emphasise, of the good to be attained by diligent work.

One great advantage secured to gardens by the hybridist is the possession of a large number of showy plants, giving greater variety at all seasons, and in some cases filling in the periods between the flowering of the larger sections of Orchids, so that a continuous supply of flowers is possible. In thus extending the flowering season the garden hybrids have the advantage over the natural hybrids which are the progeny of species flowering in the same localities and at the same period, and consequently

flowering at a similar time to their parents; whilst Orchids under cultivation may often be found in flower out of their proper season, and by this means the manipulator is able not only to effect crosses between plants naturally inhabiting totally different localities, but between species naturally flowering at different periods, of which the progeny generally flower midway between the proper time of flowering of the parents with a slight inclination mostly towards the season of the seed-bearing plant. Many instances of this kind might be given, but it will suffice to take the hybrids raised by Messrs. Jas. Veitch & Sons, using Lælia Perrinii as a seed-bearing parent, and which have brought us so many beautiful new plants flowering in the dead of winter.

But good and useful as the work of the Orchid hybridist has been, generally speaking, it has not supplied to us an altogether unmixed blessing, for in the great and easily worked genus Cypripedium a great many varieties have resulted either from unhappy crosses or from want of care in selecting the best varieties of the species used, the result being that the progeny are what may be regarded as weeds of their kind. The worst of it is that their originators do not regard them as weeds, and out of such failures spring a large proportion of the troublesome synonyms which cause so much anxiety to the members of the Orchid Committee, who get found fault with if they recognise the erroneous names under which the plants are shown, or call down the vengeance of the exhibitors if they change them. The trouble coming from this direction makes one long for the day when raisers of hybrid Orchids will be ready to admit that such failures are not worthy to be retained, and to destroy them after the manner customary among the raisers of other florist's flowers.

SEED-BEARING OF ORCHIDS IN THEIR NATIVE HOMES.

By the hybridist and by those who have studied in gardens. the varied yet always elaborate structure of Orchid flowers the theory of their fertilisation by insects is invariably accepted, and anything said on the subject by those who have had the opportunity to observe the plants in a wild state is considered of great interest. So far as my experience goes, the observer in the tropics (with some few exceptions) invariably at the commencement either denies the agency of insects in fertilising the