258 Professor Henslow's Examination 



The plant in question was undoubtedly a seedling from a 

 specimen of D. lutea. I have this species and D. purpurea 

 alone of the genus cultivated in my garden, where several 

 plants of each had been allowed to scatter their seed, and the 

 seedlings to grow wherever they chanced to come up. I had 

 already remarked a singularity in the general appearance of one 

 of these, and was watching the expansion of its flowers, when 

 I was agreeably surprized to And it to be a decided hybrid, 

 obviously having most of its characters exactly intermediate be- 

 tween those of purpurea and lutea. I had no doubt whatever 

 of its being a seedling of lutea, from the position which it 

 occupied in the garden : in coming up amidst several plants of 

 this species in a spot where an old plant had grown the year 

 before ; neither had any plant of purpurea grown in the same 

 border. Besides which, my plant exactly agrees in most par- 

 ticulars with a hybrid procured by Koel re titer in 1768 from seeds 

 of lutea fertilized by the pollen of purpurea*. His account is ac- 

 companied by a rude and inaccurate figure which by no means 

 tallies with his own description of the plant. In general habit, this 

 hybrid approaches much nearer lutea than purpurea, Plate xv. 

 Fig. 1. It is however decidedly taller and more robust than any 

 specimens of the former species which my garden ever produced. 

 Koelreuter indeed asserts that the specimens raised by him were 

 taller than either of their parents, but he assigns a' lower limit 

 to the height of purpurea than that to which many plants of 

 this species have attained with me. Notwithstanding its more 

 robust character and somewhat darker hue, the eye would 

 scarcely have recognized, upon a mere casual observation and 



* Acta Acad. Petropol. Anno 1777- 



