Experience hitherto suggests that we cannot raise Odontoglossum seedlings in this climate; very, very few have ever been obtained.  Attempts in France have been rather more successful.  Baron Adolf de Rothschild has four different hybrids of Odontoglossum in bud at this present moment in his garden at Armainvilliers, near Paris.  M. Moreau has a variety of seedlings.

Authorities admit now that a very great proportion of our Odontoglossums are natural hybrids; so many can be identified beyond the chance of error that the field for speculation has scarcely bounds. O. excellens is certainly descended from O.  Pescatorei and O. triumphans, O. elegans from O. cirrhosum and O.  Hallii, O.  Wattianum from O.  Harryanum and O. hystrix.  And it must be observed that we cannot trace pedigree beyond the parents as yet, saving a very, very few cases.  But unions have been contracting during cycles of time; doubtless, from the laws of things the orchid is latest born of Nature’s children in the world of flora, but mighty venerable by this time, nevertheless.  We can identify the mixed offspring of O. crispum Alexandrae paired with O. gloriosum, with O. luteopurpureum, with O.  Lindleyanum; these parents dwell side by side, and they could not fail to mingle.  We can already trace with assurance a few double crosses, as O. lanceans, the result of an alliance between O. crispum Alexandrae and O.  Ruckerianum, which latter is a hybrid of the former with O. gloriosum.  When we observe O.  Roezlii upon the bank of the River Cauca and O. vexillarium on the higher ground, whilst O. vexillarium superbum lives between, we may confidently attribute its peculiarity of a broad dark blotch upon the lip to the influence of O.  Roezlii.  So, taking station at Manaos upon the Amazons, we find, to eastward, Cattleya superba, to westward C.  Eldorado, and in the midst C.  Brymeriana, which, it is safe to assume, represents the union of the two; for that matter, the theory will very soon be tested, for M. Alfred Bleu has “made the cross” of C. superba and C.  Eldorado, and its flower is expected with no little interest.

These cases, and many more, are palpable.  We see a variety in the making at this date.  A thousand years hence, or ten thousand, by more distant alliances, by a change of conditions, the variety may well have developed into a species, or, by marriage excursions yet wider, it may have founded a genus.