POPPY HYBRIDS 49 



Bhceas and dubmm in the number of its average rays, it is exactly- 

 like dubmm in its range of variability. This I have observed in 

 other places. 



This was not the only sign of hybridity I noticed in strigosum. 

 In a series of fifty plants from one spot the capsules will be found 

 to vary much in length. When one approximates, though it 

 never reaches, to the length of dubium, it has always the dubmm 

 in contradistinction to the Bhceas stigmatic rays, both in number 

 and kind. This distinction must be studied in a series of fresh 

 plants to be appreciated. If it is a hybrid (and I know no means 

 of testing hybridity except by analysis, noting the averages of 

 mixed characteristics much as this) it most frequently approxi- 

 mates to the predominant Bhceas in type. 



On the Beck bank at the same spot Pryorii was also present 

 in fair quantity. Its stigmatic rays varied from 10 to 12, and 

 averaged in thirty plants, not flowers, a trifling fraction over 11. 

 Such a narrow range of variation as 3 is most unusual. Pryorii 

 has a trifling wider range than Bhceas generally. I take it to be 

 an improved energetic variety of the type usually found growing 

 on a slightly richer soil. In one case only, though I looked most 

 carefully, a trifling tinge of purple on the appressed hairs of a 

 strigosum plant suggested that a Pryorii variety had been one of 

 its parents. 



In considering the hybridity of strigosum, it is as well to 

 remember (1) that it seems only partially fertile, and (2) that 

 other forms approximately like it exist. 



The late Mr. Beeby recorded in this Journal for 1884 (p. 18) 

 one of mixed characteristics between dubium and Lecoqii. I 

 found another, where the types grew together, on a bank in 1909. 

 This plant had two seeding capsules with 7 rays, and 8 rays on a 

 flowering capsule. Mr. F. A. Lees noted in the Botanical Becord 

 Club Beport for 1877, p. 231 (as P. Argemone var. glabrum) what 

 looks like a hybrid on the Neocomian east of Easen. He described 

 it in fruit from fresh specimens as having stem leaves grey and 

 glaucous beneath when young; mature capsules often quite 

 glabrous ; and, in conversation later to me, as "a dubium like 

 Argemone, without bristles or with only one bristle on the 

 capsule." It was more abundant on the spot than type Arge- 

 mone or Bhceas. In September, 1904, I took specimens, which 

 answered to this description, on a roadside edge where Argemone 

 and dubium were both growing. The seeding heads were practi- 

 cally glabrous, but some had one bristle on them in flower. 



Since Mr. Eeynolds first wrote to me about finding chelido- 

 nioides (0. Kuntze), of which, pace Mr. Eeynolds (Journ. Bot. 

 1912, 348), I never saw a specimen, I have tried very many 

 hundreds of plants of Bhceas on old stone heap places and road- 

 side edges ; and on August 22nd last, at Manton on sandy lime- 

 stone on a roadside edge, I took Bhceas with slightly yellow sap, 

 which took time to colour, and with 10 stigmatic rays, but in all 

 other respects quite typical. I should judge that this is his 

 variety hybridised again with the type, or, as I am still inclined 

 Journal of Botany. — Vol. 51. [February, 1913.] e 



