

Chap.II. hybrid verbascums. 77 



left uncovered near plants of V. thapsus and lychnitis; 

 but again it did not produce a single seed. Four 

 flowers, however, which were repeatedly fertilised 

 with pollen of V. lychnitis, whilst the plant was tem- 

 porarily kept under a net, produced four capsules, 

 which contained five, one, two, and two seeds; at the 

 same time three flowers were fertilised with pollen of 

 V. thapsus, and these produced two, two, and three 

 seeds. To show how unproductive these seven capsules 

 were, I may state that a fine capsule from a plant of 

 V. thapsus, growing close by, contained above 700 seeds. 

 These facts led me to search the moderately sized field 

 whence my plant had been removed, and I found in it 

 many plants of V. thapsus and lychnitis, as well as 

 thirty-three plants intermediate in character between 

 these two species. These thirty-three plants differed 

 much from one another. In the branching of the stem 

 they more closely resembled V. lychnitis than V. thap- 

 sus, but in height the latter species. In the shape of 

 their leaves they often closely approach V. lychnitis, but 

 some had leaves extremely woolly on the upper surface 

 and decurrent like those of V. thapsus; yet the degree 

 of woolliness and of decurrency did not always go 

 together. In the petals being flat and remaining open, 

 and in the manner in which the anthers of the longer 

 stamens were attached to the filaments, these plants 

 all took more after V. lychnitis than V. thapsus. In 

 the yellow colour of the corolla they all resembled the 

 latter species. On the whole, these plants appeared 

 to take rather more after V. lychnitis than V. thapsus. 

 On the supposition that they were hybrids, it is not an 

 anomalous circumstance that they should all have pro- 

 duced yellow flowers; for Gartner crossed white and 

 yellow-flowered varieties of Verbascum, and the off- 

 spring thus produced never bore flowers of an inter- 





