J 24 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



made a few days ago, this time in company with Dr. George Vasey, 

 Botanist of the Department of Agriculture. As there has been of 

 late a perhaps somewhat healthy reaction against the hybrid theory, 

 doubtless too often invoked in explanation ot aberrant and intermedi- 

 ate forms, I will briefly describe our conjoint observations upon the 

 oaks in the vicinity of the trees to which reference has already been 

 made. Our problem was if possible to satisfy ourselves whether these 

 oaks were really hybrids and if so what species were to be regarded 

 as their putative parents. 



It should be premised that on both these trees (which I am no t 

 satisfied proceed from a single root, although separate at the base) the 

 lower leaves differ widely from the upper ones, the former being much 

 larger and either entire and oblong or onlv slightly lobed or angled at 

 the apex, thin and green both sides. I had frequently met in that 

 locality with trees bearing none but these large, thm, smooth, oblong 

 leaves which I had attributed to the effect of shade upon the true 

 Q. imbricaria. At no great distance from these trees were found 

 specimens of Q,. imbricaria, Q. coccinea and Q. palustris A little way off 

 we came upon a spot where there stood a large and typical tree of each 

 of these species, the three trees forming a regular triangle, and just 

 in the the center of this triangular space there grew what a])peared to be 

 another double tree somewhat smaller than that which I have so often 

 visited. I had frequently seen the?e before and observed that they bore 

 the large and thin, smooth leaves with the outline of those of Q. imbrica- 

 ria. We now observed that the larger of the two trunks bore leaves re- 

 sembling the lower leaves of < ur Q. Leana, i. e. mostly lobed or angled 

 at the end. On looking carefully up into the tops of these trees mani- 

 fest signs of lobation were visible in the leaves even of the smaller 

 trunk. This was, however, confined to the apex and often amounted 

 to nothing more than an irregular obtruncation. On the larger trunk 

 the leaves were very decidedly lobed among the upper branches quite 

 clearly approaching those on the fiuiting branches of the typical Q. 

 Leana. As neither of these trunks had as yet commenced bearing 

 fruit it seems very probable, as Dr. Vasey remar. ed, that at their ma- 

 turity the leaves of these trees will assume the normal form of the hy- 

 brid. 



The fact that Q. palustris, which was present, belongs to so dis- 

 tinct a group of oaks, with the shallow cup, seems to be tol rably con- 

 clusive against this hybrid having sprung from the union of that spe- 

 cies with Q. imbricaria, and the only remaining explanation makes 

 these trees a cross between the last named species and Q. coccinea, 

 which was the conclusion at which I arrived on first discovering the 

 other pair, and which is expressed in the paragraph quoted at the out- 

 set. 



Recurring now to the question whether these trees are really hy- 

 brids or not, it seems as if no rational mind, brought into actual contact 

 with the facts as they presented themselves in their plain, straight- 

 forward way, could resist the conviction that the pollen from a lobed- 

 leaved form had fertilized the stigmas of the entire leaved form, or 



