HYBRIDS AND HYBRIDISATION AMONG BULBOUS PLANTS. 441 
family, as each bulb produces from two to five spikes of about a foot in 
height, with flowers of fair size and of a charming colour of rosy-salmon 
with golden-brown markings. They are admirable for filling small glasses 
for table decoration, and other choice floral work. This strain I named 
‘Express,’ and from various sides I have already received letters expressing 
gratifying satisfaction with the habit, time of flowering, and general use- 
fulness of these Gladioli. Other strains, results of crosses between the 
best and showiest of other South African Gladioli, are in course of 
development, and one or two, at least, seem likely to yield satisfactory 
results. 
HYMENOCALLIS.—With a view of ascertaining the correctness of the 
supposed parentage of H. macrostephana, after some years’ trial I managed 
to have the two supposed parents Hymenocallis speciosa and Hymenocallis 
(Ismene) calathina in flower at the same time. The results showed abso- 
lutely different plants from H. macrostephana, being much broader and 
thinner in the leaf ; the formation and size of the inflorescence and of the 
individual flowers also being quite different. When in good condition, 
this hybrid Hymenocallis, the first authentically on record between the 
evergreen section Hymenocallis and the deciduous Ismenes, is a magnifi- 
cent plant, with an umbel of over a foot and a half across, with large, 
snowy-white individual flowers, exceeding in size even the large- 
flowered H. macrostephana. This hybrid has been distributed under the 
name of H. Daphne. Crosses between the white H. calathina and the 
yellow, green-banded H. Amancaes gave charming mules of a delicate 
sulphur-yellow. These, however, have also at various times been raised 
in England. 
In1s.—The deep sandy soil and the climate of Haarlem seem to 
suit a very large portion of the Iris tribe, and from time immemorial 
Irises have been grown and improved by Dutch cultivators. I. Xiphiwm 
(Spanish) and J. xiphioides (anglica) strains, if raised from seed, will still 
yield agreeable surprises, but it is doubtful whether these really differ 
from those that were in cultivation a hundred and more years ago. So 
many species of the subgenus Xiphion being now in cultivation that were 
unknown to our ancestors, some eight to ten years ago | commenced inter- 
crossing the Spanish, Portuguese, and Moroccan species of Xiphion, not 
using, however, the ancestors of the strain that are now known as the 
Spanish Irises. From these crosses various modifications at last resulted 
ina highly important race of very large-flowered Xiphions, of the form and 
shape of the Spanish Irises, but flowering quite a fortnight earlier. ‘The 
flowers of this strain (which is not yet in commerce) show the same range 
of colours as is met with in the ordinary Spanish Irises, but the flowers 
are of unusual size and great substance, the falls being from 14 to 2 
inches across, and the entire flower measuring over 44 inches from tip to 
tip. It is interesting to note that, whereas in the ordinary Spanish Irises 
the yellow colour is so abundantly represented, it was only in the later 
and latest generations of seedlings of my new strain that good and pure 
yellows have been developing. It is also interesting that, by continually 
selecting only the earliest-flowered varieties, the strain now obtained 
flowers nearly three weeks before the ordinary Spanish Irises, which, 
considering the fact that so many tens of thousands of these Irises are 
