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.
Hybrids partake of the nature of both parents, but they incline
generally, as in the extreme cases mentioned, to resemble one much more
strongly than the other. When a Cattleya or Loelia of the single-leaf
section is crossed with one of the two-leaf, some of the offspring, from
the same capsule, show two leaves, others one only; and some show one
and two alternately, obeying no rule perceptible to us at present.
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