448 REPOKT OF THE CONFERENCE ON GENETICS. 
It must, however, be admitted that many beautiful roses have been 
obtained by sowing naturally fertilised seed gathered at hazard, and some 
excellent new varieties of roses have also been obtained from branch sports 
of existing varieties. In the latter connection may be mentioned the Tea 
roses ‘ The Queen,’ ‘ Rainbow,’ and ‘ Madame Chédane Guinoisseau,’ the 
Hybrid Teas ‘ White Lady’ and ‘Augustine Guinoisseau,’ the Hybrid 
Perpetuals ‘ Duke of Fife’ and ‘Mrs. Sanford,’ and many climbing forms, 
in some of which, such as Climbing ‘ Belle Siebrecht’ and Climbing 
‘Captain Christy,’ the additional vigour of growth adds greatly to the value 
of the variety for garden decoration. These dimorphisms or dichroisms 
seem, as perhaps might be expected, more prone to occur among 
varieties of those classes which by successive hybridising and cross- 
breeding have become furthest removed from their original source. 
As a result of the intercrossing of so many varieties of different 
species and sections, the proper classification of many of the new intro- 
ductions is becoming a matter of increasing difficulty, as the offspring is 
often found to possess the characteristics of more than one parent so 
evenly balanced that it might with equal propriety be referred to more 
than one class. This is especially the case with the Hybrid Tea roses, 
at present kept in a class by themselves, some of which might for horti- 
cultural purposes be appropriately classed with the Hybrid Perpetuals, 
whilst others might without violence to existing ideas be classed with the 
Tea roses. Again, inthe case of some of the newer varieties of ‘ Rambler’ 
roses it is difficult to determine whether they should be referred to the 
multiflora or Wichuraiana groups, which, although botanically closely 
allied, are horticulturally distinct. 
Of recent years the varieties of Rosa lutea have been used as pollen- 
bearing parents with good effect. To the crossing of the Hybrid Perpetual 
variety ‘Antoine Ducher’ with the ‘Persian Yellow’ we owe the hybrid 
brier ‘ Soleil d’Or,’ a rose which, although somewhat uncertain, is capable 
of giving flowers of great splendour and richness of colouring both in 
summer and autumn, and which cannot be otherwise regarded than as an 
acquisition of considerable interest and horticultural merit. As the 
result of further crosses of somewhat complex nature on the part of 
another raiser we have ‘ Gottfried Keller,’ a very distinct hybrid of delicate 
and rich colouring, which also blooms in autumn, and which will be highly 
appreciated as a garden rose when it becomes more widely known. ‘The 
first stepin obtaining this variety was the crossing of the Hybrid Perpetual 
‘Pierre Notting’ with the Climbing Tea ‘Madame Bérard,’ the offspring 
being crossed with ‘Persian Yellow’ and the progeny therefrom again 
fertilised with pollen from a direct cross of ‘Madame Bérard’ with 
‘Persian Yellow.’ Flowers of ‘Gottfried Keller’ fertilised with pollen 
from the Hybrid Perpetual ‘Charles Lefebvre’ in the Waltham Cross 
Nursery matured their seed and have produced seedlings which resemble 
‘Gottfried Keller’ in their brier-like foliage and habit of growth. On 
the occasion of a recent visit to the grounds of M. Pernet-Ducher of 
Lyons I saw a large breadth of the new hybrid rose named “the Lyons - 
Rose,”’ which he has already publicly exhibited at Lyons. This rose, 
which has flowers of a rich shade of salmon-pink, shaded with yellow at 
the base of the petals, is a seedling from a Hybrid Tea fertilised with 
