Cypripedium (hybridum) Pollettianum.
Reduced to One Sixth
After a single lesson, in the genus Cypripedium alone, a young lady of my household amused herself by concerting the most incredible alliances—Dendrobium with Odontoglossum, Epidendrum with Oncidium, Oncidium with Odontoglossum, and so forth. It is unnecessary to tell the experienced that in every case the seed vessel swelled; that matter will be referred to presently. I mention the incident only to show how simple are these processes if the key be grasped.
Amateur hybridizers of an audacious class are wanted because, hitherto, operators have kept so much to the beaten paths. The names of Veitch and Dominy and Seden will endure when those of great savants are forgotten; but business men have been obliged to concentrate their zeal upon experiments that pay. Fantastic crosses mean, in all probability, a waste of time, space, and labour; in fact, it is not until recent years that such attempts could be regarded as serious. So much the more creditable, therefore, are Messrs. Veitch's exertions in that line.
But it seems likely to me that when hybridizing becomes a common pursuit with those who grow orchids—and the time approaches fast—a very strange revolution may follow. It will appear, as I think, that the enormous list of pure species—even genera—recognized at this date may be thinned in a surprising fashion. I believe—timidly, as becomes the unscientific—that many distinctions which anatomy recognizes at present as essential to a true species will be proved, in the future, to result from promiscuous hybridization through æons of time. "Proved," perhaps, is the word too strong, since human life is short; but such a mass of evidence will be collected that reasonable men can entertain no doubt. Of course the species will be retained, but we shall know it to be a hybrid—the offspring, perhaps, of hybrids innumerable.
I incline more and more to think that even genera may be disturbed in a surprising fashion, and I know that some great authorities agree with me outright, though they are unprepared to commit themselves at present. A very few years ago this suggestion would have been absurd, in the sense that it wanted facts in support. As our ancestors made it an article of faith that to fertilize an orchid was impossible for man, so we imagined until lately that genera would not mingle. But this belief grows unsteady. Though bi-generic crosses have not been much favoured, as offering little prospect of success, such results have been obtained already that the field of speculation lies open to irresponsible persons like myself. When Cattleya has been allied with Sophronitis, Sophronitis with Epidendrum, Odontoglossum with Zygopetalum, Cœlogene with Calanthe, one may credit almost anything. What should be stated on the other side will appear presently.
How many hybrids have we now, established, and passing from hand to hand as freely as natural species? There is no convenient record; but in the trade list of a French dealer those he is prepared to supply are set apart with Gallic precision. They number 416; but imagination and commercial enterprise are not less characteristic of the Gaul than precision.
In the excellent "Manual" of Messrs. Veitch, which has supplied me with a mass of details, I find ten hybrid Calanthes; thirteen hybrid Cattleyas, and fifteen Lœlias, besides sixteen "natural hybrids"—species thus classed upon internal evidence—and the wondrous Sophro-Cattleya, bi-generic; fourteen Dendrobiums and one natural; eighty-seven Cypripediums—but as for the number in existence, it is so great, and it increases so fast, that Messrs. Veitch have lost count; Phajus one, but several from alliance with Calanthe; Chysis two; Epidendrum one; Miltonia one, and two natural; Masdevallia ten, and two natural; and so on. And it must be borne in mind that these amazing results have been effected in one generation. Dean Herbert's achievements eighty years ago were not chronicled, and it is certain that none of the results survive. Mr. Sander of St. Albans preserves an interesting relic, the only one as yet connected with the science of orchidology. This is Cattleya hybrida, the first of that genus raised by Dominy, manager to Messrs. Veitch, at the suggestion of Mr. Harris of Exeter, to the stupefaction of our grandfathers. Mr. Harris will ever be remembered as the gentleman who showed Mr. Veitch's agent how orchids are fertilized, and started him on his career. This plant was lost for years, but Mr. Sander found it by chance in the collection of Dr. Janisch at Hamburg, and he keeps it as a curiosity, for in itself the object has no value. But this is a digression.
Dominy's earliest success, actually the very first of garden hybrids to flower—in 1856—was Calanthe Dominii, offspring of C. Masuca × C. furcata;—be it here remarked that the name of the mother, or seed parent, always stands first. Another interest attaches to C. Dominii. Both its parents belong to the Veratræfolia section of Calanthe, the terrestrial species, and no other hybrid has yet been raised among them. We have here one of the numberless mysteries disclosed by hybridization. The epiphytal Calanthes, represented by C. vestita, will not cross with the terrestrial, represented by C. veratræfolia, nor will the mules of either. We may "give this up" and proceed. In 1859 flowered C. Veitchii, from C. rosea, still called, as a rule, Limatodes rosea, × C. vestita. No orchid is so common as this, and none more simply beautiful. But although the success was so striking, and the way to it so easy, twenty years passed before even Messrs. Veitch raised another hybrid Calanthe. In 1878 Seden flowered C. Sedeni from C. Veitchii × C. vestita. Others entered the field then, especially Sir Trevor Lawrence, Mr. Cookson, and Mr. Charles Winn. But the genus is small, and they mostly chose the same families, often giving new names to the progeny, in ignorance of each other's labour.
The mystery I have alluded to recurs again and again. Large groups of species refuse to inter-marry with their nearest kindred, even plants which seem identical in the botanist's point of view. There is good ground for hoping, however, that longer and broader experience will annihilate some at least of the axioms current in this matter. Thus, it is repeated and published in the very latest editions of standard works that South American Cattleyas, which will breed, not only among themselves, but also with the Brazilian Lœlias, decline an alliance with their Mexican kindred. But Baron Schroeder possesses a hybrid of such typical parentage as Catt. citrina, Mexican, and Catt. intermedia, Brazilian. It was raised by Miss Harris, of Lamberhurst, Kent, one single plant only; and it has flowered several times. Messrs. Sander have crossed Catt. guttata Leopoldii, Brazil, with Catt. Dowiana, Costa Rica, giving Catt. Chamberliana; Lœlia crispa, Brazil, with the same, giving Lœlio-Cattleya Pallas; Catt. citrina, Mexico, with Catt. intermedia, Brazil, giving Catt. citrina intermedia (Lamberhurst hybrid); Lœlia flava, Brazil, with Catt. Skinneri, Costa Rica, giving Lœlio-Catt. Marriottiana; Lœlia pumila, Brazil, with Catt. Dowiana, Costa Rica, giving Lœlio-Catt. Normanii; Lœlia Digbyana, Central America, with Catt. Mossiæ, Venezuela, giving Lœlio-Catt. Digbyana-Mossiæ; Catt. Mossiæ, Venezuela, with Lœlia cinnabarina, Brazil, giving Lœlio-Catt. Phoebe. Not yet flowered and unnamed, raised in the Nursery, are Catt. citrina, Mexico, with Lœlia purpurata, Brazil; Catt. Harrisoniæ, Brazil, with Catt. citrina, Mexico; Lœlia anceps, Mexico, with Epidendrum ciliare, U.S. Colombia. In other genera there are several hybrids of Mexican and South American parentage; as L. anceps × Epid. ciliare, Sophronitis grandiflora × Epid. radicans, Epid. xanthinum × Epid. radicans.
But among Cypripediums, the easiest and safest of all orchids to hybridize, East Indian and American species are unfruitful. Messrs. Veitch obtained such a cross, as they had every reason to believe, in one instance. For sixteen years the plants grew and grew until it was thought they would prove the rule by declining to flower. I wrote to Messrs. Veitch to obtain the latest news. They inform me that one has bloomed at last. It shows no trace of the American strain, and they have satisfied themselves that there was an error in the operation or the record. Again, the capsules secured from very many by-generic crosses have proved, time after time, to contain not a single seed. In other cases the seed was excellent to all appearance, but it has resolutely refused to germinate. And further, certain by-generic seedlings have utterly ignored one parent. Zygopetalum Mackayi has been crossed by Mr. Veitch, Mr. Cookson, and others doubtless, with various Odontoglossums, but the flower has always turned out Zygopetalum Mackayi pure and simple—which becomes the more unaccountable more one thinks of it.