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." The geographical distribution shows that Cypripedium was more
common in early times--to speak vaguely--and covered an area yet more
extensive than now. And the process of extermination is still working,
as with other primitive types.

Messrs. Veitch point out that although few genera of plants are
scattered so widely over the earth as Cypripedium, the species have
withdrawn to narrow areas, often isolated, and remote from their
kindred. Some are rare to the degree that we may congratulate ourselves
upon the chance which put a few specimens in safety under glass before
it was too late, for they seem to have become extinct even in this
generation. Messrs. Veitch give a few striking instances. All the plants
of _Cyp. Fairieanum_ known to exist have sprung from three or four
casually imported in 1856. Two bits of _Cyp. superbiens_ turned up among
a consignment of _Cyp. barbatum_; none have been found since, and it is
doubtful whether the species survives in its native home. Only three
plants of _Cyp. Marstersianium_ have been discovered. They reached Mr.
Bull in a miscellaneous case of Cypripediums forwarded to him by the
D