284 Rhodora [DECEMBER 
LOBELIA x SYPHILITICO-CARDIN ALIS. 
OAKES AMES. 
(Plate 49.) 
Lobelia x syphilitico-cardinalis was raised by means of artificial 
pollination many years ago. It has also been reported to occur as 
a natural hybrid where the parent species are associated. The 
plants referred to in this brief note were obtained from seeds by Mr. 
Robert G. Leavitt, who pollinated flowers of Z. syphititica, L., with 
pollen of Z. cardinalis, L., in the late summer of 1901. During the 
following year flowers were produced by several of the hybrids and 
in August, 1903, nearly all of them came into bloom. The variation 
in flower color was well marked, and for the most part the color 
values were intermediate. In several cases, however, the corollas 
showed not the faintest trace of blue, although their structural 
features were midway between the parent species. One plant had 
corollas with a white ground, suffused, minutely mottled, and spar- 
ingly spotted with pink. Sixteen plants gave rise to flowers of a 
rich shade of magenta-crimson, which exhibited an almost perfect 
mingling of the blue-violet of Z. syphilitica and of the deep red of 
the pollen parent. ‘Three had flowers of a peculiar red tone much 
like that of Z. cardinalis. 
In their structural details the hybrid plants were exactly inter- 
mediate. Beginning with the calyx a beautiful intermediary series 
was apparent in the formation of the tube and its auricles, in the 
relative length of the lobes, and in the length and density of the 
hairs. In all the plants which bloomed there was but slight varia- 
tion in the essential characters indicative of the hybrid origin of this 
organ. ‘The corollas, on the other hand, were more conspicuously 
intermediate, and owing to the vast dissimilarity between the parents 
this part of the flower offered unusual opportunities for a study of 
mingled parental traits. The corolla-tube of Z. cardinalis is slender 
near the summit and broadest near the base, while just the reverse 
is true of Z. syphilitica. In the hybrids, without exception, a tube 
approximately equal in diameter from base to top was a conspicuous 
mean. The corolla-lobes were as remarkable in outline, direction 
1 The term intermediate is used here to signify a mean between the parents. 
