the seed, from which the plants here figured were raised, had 

 been obtained ; but, from the possibility of the admission of 

 natural pollen in spite of all precautions, it was thought best 

 not to broach therein suspicions which could not at that time 

 be verified. The suspicion was that N. incomparabilis, or the 

 genus Queltia of Haworth, in all its varieties, was made be- 

 tween Ajax and N. poeticus j N. odorus, or genus Phylogyne 

 of Haworth, in all its varieties, between -Ajax and jonquill ; 

 Q. Macleai, or Diomedes of Haworth, between Ajax and Her- 

 mione ; N. Gracilis and tenuior, or Helene of Haworth, be- 

 tween N. poeticus and jonquill; N. orientalis (his Schisanthes) 

 between incomparabilis and Hermione; Hermione bifrons and 

 compressa between H. Tazetta and jonquill ; Hermione Ba- 

 zelman major and minor, Cypri, flexiflora, and Trewiana, 

 and the four-flowered N. biflorus of the Hort-. Soc. between 

 Hermione and N. poeticus ; and the result of experiments 

 enables me to assert that those suspicions are now veri- 

 fied as to the three first cases, and that I entertain no doubt 

 concerning the latter. Bazelman minor evidently derives the 

 orange margin of its cup from N. poeticus. Parkinson indeed 

 mentions that incomparabilis produces rarely a few seeds, but 

 he does not say, whether the seeds he saw were sown, or what 

 they produced. It is not meant to assert, that there is any 

 physical impossibility in these cross-bred plants reproducing 

 themselves by seed, but that their general habit is sterility, 

 and that no such reproduction is known to have taken place, 

 and that all must be expunged from the botanical catalogue 

 of natural genera or species. 



Fig. 5. is the produce of the wild Yorkshire daffodil, A. 

 pseudonarcissus, by pollen of N. poeticus, and is decidedly a 

 variety of the plant called N. or Q. incomparabilis. Fig. 3. 

 is the produce of incomparabilis by the same N. poeticus, that 

 is two generations from the daffodil by the poetic narcissus ; 

 and in it the change is complete from the form of stamina in 

 the daffodil to that in the true Narcissus, and it is evident, 

 that one cross more (or at least two further crosses) would, out 

 of the wild daffodil, produce the true Pheasant-eye Narcissus. 

 The pollen of this doubly-crossed plant is also fertile, for, 

 though I have never seen natural seed of N. montanus (of 

 which the native place is uncertain, and which might perhaps 

 be made between the wild N. dubius of France and Ajax mos- 



