INFERTILE HYBRIDS, 185 
The leaves were of the same shape as in the latter. The tallest plants 
reached the height of eight feet. In many, if not most of the plants, the 
inflorescences were more or less fasciated at the top, the amount of 
fasciation varying from a slight flattening of the apex to the production 
of a dense brush of flower-bearing shoots of very considerable length 
(fig. 32). When large, the weight of the fasciated mass bent the 
inflorescence over greatly. Several strong secondary flowering branches 
sprang from the lower part of the primary inflorescence. 
The flowers were almost white or extremely pale shades of yellow, 
never the pure white of the white foxglove. The corolla was an inch 
long or little more, and much narrower than that of the purple foxglove 
series. Few or many purple spots occurred in the floor of the tube. The’ 
anthers, rudimentary at best, were often entirely absent. Usually one or 
more of the filaments had disappeared also. Nectar was copiously secreted, 
and bees, failing to reach it by the mouth of the corolla, very often 
pierced the base of the tube. The capsules swelled considerably, but no 
good seed was ever found. 
The plants of the series so closely resembled one another as to be 
virtually all indistinguishable. Like the other hybrids, they were peren- 
nial. The vegetative and flowering crowns increased in number, but the 
inflorescences became less vigorous. In a few years the plants died out. 
Contrasting the above two series, it is difficult to explain the obviously 
greater vigour of the hybrids derived from the cross with the white fox- 
glove. It seems natural to assume that the white foxglove is a 
variety of the purple species, and that it is not at all likely to be 
constitutionally stronger. The pollen of the white foxglove is of the 
highest quality. 
The very marked tendency to fasciation in the series is a further 
puzzle. Slight fasciation has been noticed on one occasion in D. lutea, 
but it does not seem to be at alla common occurrence. Peloria is a very 
familiar peculiarity in the foxglove. It remains to be shown whether 
peloria and fasciation are associated monstrosities. No peloria, however, 
has been seen in the hybrids. 
Digitalis lutea and D. purpurea alba reciprocally crossed. 
Some years after the above observations were carried out, an effort was 
made to secure reciprocal crosses between the same parents. This was 
not found to be difficult to accomplish. The pollen of D. lutea is in- 
distinguishable from that of D. purpurea alba. There is, of course, a 
very considerable difference in the length of the style in the two parent 
plants. 
The seed of the reciprocal crosses was sown and the plants cultivated 
under identical conditions. No difference was discernible until the flowers 
were produced, when it was seen that the two series differed very con- 
siderably in floral features. Those having the white foxglove as pollen- 
parent (fig. 33) bore a very great resemblance to the former series 
described above; in fact they were a repetition of that series, in all 
essential particulars. They had the same narrow, almost white corolla, 
and the same tendency to abortion of the stamens. In many cases the 
