After
choosing parents thoughtfully, with a clear perception of the aim in
view, one must "go it blind." Very often the precise effect desired
appears in due time; very often something unlooked for turns up; but
nearly always the result is beautiful, whether or no it serve the
operator's purpose. Besides effect, however, there is an utility in
hybridization which relates to culture. Thus, for example, the lovely
_Cypripedium Fairieanum_ is so difficult to grow that few dealers keep
it in their stock; by crossing it with _Cyp. barbatum_, from Mount
Ophir, a rough-and-ready cool species, we get _Cyp. vexillarium_, which
takes after the latter in constitution while retaining much of the
beauty of the former. Or again, _Cypripedium Sanderianum_, from the
Malay Archipelago, needs such swampy heat as few even of its fellows
appreciate; it has been crossed with _Cyp. insigne_, which will flourish
anywhere, and though the seedlings have not yet bloomed, there is no
reasonable doubt that they will prove as useful and beautiful as in the
other case. _Cypripedium insigne_, of the fine varieties, has been
employed in a multitude of such instances. There is the striking _Cyp.
hirsutissimum_, with sepals of a nameless green, shaded yellow, studded
with spiculae, exquisitely frilled, and tipped, by a contrast almost
startling, with pale purple. It is very "hot" in the first place, and,
in the second, its appearance would be still more effective if some
white could be introduced; present it to _Cyp.
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