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Updated: May 1, 2025
I advise my readers to be daring, even desperate. It is satisfactory to learn that Mr. Cookson intends to make a study of bi-generic hybridization henceforward. The common motive for crossing orchids is that, of course, which urges the florist in other realms of botany. He seeks to combine tints, forms, varied peculiarities, in a new shape.
Veitch, which has supplied me with a mass of details, I find ten hybrid Calanthes; thirteen hybrid Cattleyas, and fifteen Loelias, 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.
The first bi-generic cross deserves a paragraph to itself if only on that account; but its own merits are more than sufficient. Sophro-Cattleya Batemaniana was raised by Messrs. Veitch from Sophronitis grandiflora × Catt. intermedia. It flowered in August, 1886; petals and sepals rosy scarlet, lip pale lilac bordered with amethyst and tipped with rosy purple.
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, Coelogene with Calanthe, one may credit almost anything.
Of Calanthe, sixteen hybrids from nineteen capsules; of Dendrobium, thirty-six hybrids from forty-one capsules; of Masdevallia, four hybrids from seventeen capsules; of Odontoglossum, none from nine capsules; of Phajus, two from two capsules; of Vanda, none from one capsule; of bi-generic, one from nine capsules.
Failures in abundance he had at first, but the proportion has grown less and less until, at this moment, he confidently looks for success in seventy-five per cent. of his attempts; but this does not apply to bi-generic crosses, which hitherto have not engaged his attention much.
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