Messrs. Low imported several in 1874, one of
which, being different again, was called after Mr. Brymer. Three have
been found since, always among _Ph. Aphrodite_; the finest known is
possessed by Lord Rothschild. That these were natural hybrids could not
be doubted; Seden crossed _Ph. Aphrodite_ with _Ph. rosea_, and proved
it. Our garden hybrids are two: _Ph. F.L. Ames_, obtained from _Ph.
amabilis x Ph. intermedia_, and _Ph. Harriettae_ from _Ph. amabilis x
Ph. violacea_, named after the daughter of Hon. Erastus Corning, of
Albany, U.S.A.
Oncidiums yield only two natural hybrids at present, and those
uncertain; others are suspected. We have no garden hybrids, I believe,
as yet. So it is with Odontoglossums, as has been said, but in the
natural state they cross so freely that a large proportion of the
species may probably be hybrids. I allude to this hereafter.
I have left Cypripediums to the last, in these hasty notes, because that
supremely interesting genus demands more than a record of dry facts.
Darwin pointed out that Cypripedium represents the primitive form of
orchid. He was acquainted with no links connecting it with the later and
more complicated genera; some have been discovered since that day, but
it is nevertheless true that "an enormous extinction must have swept
away a multitude of intermediate forms, and left this single genus as
the record of a former and more simple state of the great orchidacean
order.
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