BOTANY. 353 



collected, put into coarse bags, and drained dry, and it is then used in the 

 same way as the ordinary commercial article. Those who have used it most 

 insist that the color is better and more permanent than that of the exotic 

 indigo, and that the same quantity of the plant will yield much more than 

 I. tinctoria. They are in the habit of cutting it three or four times in the 

 season from the same root. Sometimes they gather the seed and sow it in 

 convenient places, where it will flourish and yield a supply for years. It 

 seems likely that this wild indigo might be made a profitable crop in the 

 South ; with this great advantage, that it would be produced on lands now 

 waste and useless for any other purpose. Prof. Asa Gray, Silliman's Jour- 

 nal, quoted, 



ON THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES IN PLANTS. 



Dr. Hooker, of England, in his recently published work on the " Botany 

 of the Antarctic Voyage," in discussing the relations and distribution of spe- 

 cies in plants, lays down the following propositions as axioms : 



" 1. That all the individuals of a species have prcceeded from one parent 

 (or pair), and that they retain their distinctive (specific) characters. 2. That 

 species vary more than is generally admitted to be the case. 3. That they 

 are also much more widely distributed than is usually supposed. 4. That 

 their distribution has been effected by natural causes; but that these are not 

 necessarily the same as those to which they are now exposed." 



" Hybridization has been supposed by many to be an important element 

 in confusing and making species. Nature, however, seems effectually to 

 have guarded against its extensive operation and its effects in a natural 

 state, and as a general rule the genera most easily hybridized in gardens are 

 not those in which the species present the greatest difficulties. With regard 

 to the facility with which hybrids are produced, the prevalent ideas on the 

 subject are extremely erroneous. Gartner, the most recent and careful 

 experimenter, who appears to have pursued his enquiries in a truly philo- 

 sophical spirit, says that 10,000 experiments upon 700 species produced only 

 250 true hybrids. It would have been most interesting had he added how 

 many of these produced seeds, and hoAV many of the latter were fertile, and 

 for how many generations they were propagated. The most satisfactory 

 proof we can adduce of hybridization being powerless as an agent in pro- 

 ducing species (however much it may combine them), are the facts that no 

 hybrid has ever afforded a character foreign to that of its parents, and that 

 hybrids are generally constitutionally weak, and almost invariably barren. 

 Unisexual trees must offer many facilities for the natural production of 

 hybrids, which, nevertheless, have never been proved to occur, nor are such 

 trees more variable than hermaphrodite ones." 



ON THE TRANSMUTATION OF WHEAT INTO CHESS. 



It is a popular and widely -extended belief, that the purest and best wheat 

 may be planted that it may germinate, grow, and form a plant but that 

 the occurrence of certain casualties as sudden freezing and thawing while 

 the ground is wet will, by some mysterious process, transmute the plant 

 into a widely different species, viz., chess. A similar belief prevails, less 

 extensively, in regard to the change of barley into oats. 



The advocates of the transmutation of wheat into chess have been repeat- 



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