Dear Sir

I enclose for your inspection a few of the seeds of the abortive Cattleya crispa flower as well as a few of Lælia cinnabarina from a perfect flower without manipulation;¹ both of which have been ripe for the last two months. The Den. Cretaceum pods are yet unripe but when they are so I shall submit a few of the seeds for your inspection for I look upon them with more interest having watched the anomalous proceeding with more interest than the Cattleya flower,² some of the phases in the progress of which not being so closely watched, as it being the first instance of the kind that came under my cognisance I supposed it would be an entire failure. I have also sent pkts. to M^r Gosse and I hope you will “report progress”³

I am exceedingly glad to embrace this opportunity of bearing testimony to your unwearied and painstaking abilities in going so minutely into what may appear at first a more difficult problem than what it really is.

I have great hopes of succeeding in rearing thousands of my “crosses” for I have now gone into the fertilisation of them with earnestness and from the results of practice I can with confidence reckon upon effecting a cross, if the pollen masses be taken off at the proper time and applied to a flower in a proper condition. We have hundreds of imported seedlings of a species of Rodriguesia that have come safe home on the blocks which they had germinated upon in Trinidad;⁴ and I don’t see why we should not be able to reproduce species and varieties here.⁵

I have perused your reply in J. of H with much pleasure and the more I know of the seed pods the more I am convinced that it is almost futile attempting to rear seedlings unless from flowers that have been artificially dealt with. I confess my inability in a dozen of trials with casual pods to produce a healthy germination. I, too, like M^r Gosse, have had a very few swelling almost to the size of the “old” pin head but they too dissappeared. However, I should not like to be too dogmatical on this point.

I shall be glad to hear from you after you have analysed the chaff (?)

I am | D^r Sir | Yours truly | Jas Anderson

P.S. By way of experiment, I gave a large plant of Phaius Grandiflorus a good ‘shaking’ to try if irritation would do anything in the way of inducing seed and I find some half dozen pods upon the plant. I was induced so to do as probably you may be aware that Erica elegans will not cross with any other species of heath neither will it set a single pod unless some artificial mode be adopted; but by shaking the plant the pollen will disperse and the plant thereupon will produce seed in abundance.⁶

J. A.