120 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



I April, 



tion until it at length attained full maturity. 

 The seeds, four in number, also ripened very 

 well. Of course it was at once seen that this 

 was an instance of what botanists call clandes- 

 tine fertilization. 



M. Houlet, the able chief of the hothouse de- 

 partment of the museum, begged me one day 

 to determine this cux-ious plant for him. " "Wait 

 until it blossoms," I said. But as the blossom 

 was very long in making its appearance, I ex- 

 amined the minute corolla with the microscope, 

 and this, together with the indications furnished 

 by the seeds, enabled me to refer it to the genus 

 Stenandrium. The clandestine fertilization con- 

 tinued. A hundred times the biological con- 

 ditions of this curious plant were changed 

 without altering its temperament. 



Linnaeus, in his Hortus Upsaliensis, gives a 

 not altogether correct explanation of this phe- 

 nomenon. Dillenius speaks of it under the 

 head of buellia, in his Hortis Etkamensis , with- 

 out giving a more correct explanation of the 

 persistent anomaly. 



The entire family of Acanthaceae furnishes a 

 great number of examples, with the difference 

 that here clandestine alternates with normal 

 fertilization. I then conceived the idea of sub- 

 jecting this remarkable plant to the influence of 

 variously colored light, by a modification of the 

 American method. I was in hopes that the 

 stimulus given by some one or other of the 

 colored rays of the spectrum would enable me 

 to determine this singular anomaly. 



I mentioned my plan to the eminent profes- 

 sor of horticulture, M. Decaisne, who, with his 

 usual courtesy, lost no time in placing at my 

 disposal the necessary space, and the requisites 

 for a series of experiments in the shape of cyl- 

 indrical open-mouthed glasses, in which the 

 light and air could circulate freely. These 

 glasses had double sides of colorless glass. 

 In the annular spaces between the inner and 

 outer sides were placed colored fluids, repre- 

 senting six colors of the solar [spectrum. The 

 glasses were ten to twelve inches deep, with 

 an inner diameter of four to six inches. The 

 annular space filled by the colored fluid in each 

 was six to eight inches in width. In the inner- 

 most glass we stood the little plant in its little 

 pot. The light from the sides had therefore to 

 traverse six to eight inches of colored fluid 

 before reaching the plant, whilst above, the 

 white light and air entered and circulated round 

 the plant unchecked. 



We had sown a certain number of seeds of 

 the plant in question, and of the young plants 

 so raised we chose six of equal size and age, 

 one for each glass. The fluid surrounding the 

 first glass was a fine aniline purple or violet. 

 That in the second glass was an ammonical so- 

 lution of salts of copper, giving a beautiful blue. 

 The third liad a solution of salts of nickel, 

 giving an equally brilliant green. The fourth 

 was a solution of chromate of potassium, giving 

 a yellow color. The fifth was a solution of 

 bichromate of potassium, producing an orange. 

 And the sixth was a very fine aniline red. 



(To be continued.) 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Hybrid Flowers. — There is yet a wide field 

 unexplored in the physiological conditions in- 

 volved in the infusion of distinct individuals in 

 one hybrid form. In chemistry the union of 

 two different bodies always results in the same 

 identical product ; but it is not so in plant life. 

 If we take the flowers of two distinct species 

 to-day, and cross-fertilize them, the progeny 

 will be different from what the same two flow- 

 ers would yield to-morrow. Again in the pro- 

 geny of the same individual cross the young 

 plants raised are different from one another. 

 The progeny partake of some of the characters 

 of both parents, just as a chemical infusion 

 would ; but the proportions vary in each. Just 

 now some interesting hybrids have been ob- 

 tained in England between the Utah yellow 

 columbine and the blue columbine of the Rocky 

 Mountains. Instead of the blue and yellow 

 uniting together and making a green, as in an 

 ordinary color mixture, the blues and yellows in 

 the progeny are just as bright as in the original 

 parents. Some parts of the flowers are ^blue 

 and some yellow. In one case the nectaries 

 have the bright blue of the Eocky Mountain 

 species, while the petals are golden yellow. 

 Thus it appears that parental influence may 

 aff"ect only particular parts of the offspring ; or 

 one parent may influence one part, or one 

 another. But under what law these peculiar 

 influences operate no fellow of any learned as- 

 sociation or any other " fellow " has so far been 

 able to find out. 



[A kind correspondent sends us the above, as 

 taken from a " Boston paper." It so happens 

 that it came originally from the Science Depart- 

 ment of the New York Independent, from the 



