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THE CROSS-BREEDING OF PEACHES AND NECTARINES. 465 
the peach has been directly affected by the pollen of the nectarine. On 
none of the numerous seedlings from peach and nectarine has one of these 
mixed fruits ever been noticed at Sawbridgeworth, nor has any case of 
xenia occurred. 
The flowers of peaches and nectarines may be broadly classed as large 
and small. Both vary considerably in size, shape, and colour in the in- 
dividual varieties. 
In large-flowered peaches and nectarines some of the filaments are 
frequently parily petalloid. This generally occurs down one side, the 
anther-lobe on that side being aborted. With small flowers I have never 
noticed any but perfect filaments ; the flowers are usually more numerous, 
and pollen is always very abundantly produced by small flowers, whereas 
in large flowers it is often scanty. When trees are forced, the anthers of 
large flowers are sometimes obsolete, and the filaments very stunted. As 
-to flowers, the results of thirty-nine crosses are: 
? 3 
1. Large x large = 20 large, 2 small. 
2 Largexsmall= 8s ,; 2 ,, 
3. Small x large = 1 ,, 6 
No. 1.—The two small-flowered trees in the large x large flowers are of 
different parentage. Both crosses have given two seedlings, one with 
large and one with small flowers; but in the one all the seed-parents in 
the ancestry of both sides are large-flowered, whilst in the other the 
mother of the pollen-parent was large-flowered, and the seed-parent came 
through a large-flowered mother from a small-flowered grandmother. 
No. 2._With the two small from large x small, in one case the seed- 
parent has a small-flowered ancestor one generation away ; in the other, 
all the seed-parent’s female ancestry are large-flowered, and the two 
resulting seedlings from this cross have small and large flowers respec 
tively. 
No. 3.—Lastly, the large-flowered seedling from small x large flowers 
1s one of two seedlings from one stone; one with large, ihe other with 
small flowers. Here the seed-parent comes from a line of small-flowered 
female ancestors ; the pollen-parent has a large-flowered mother and a 
small-fiowered grandmother. 
Lindley gives a curious case of bud-variation as regards flowers 
(“ Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden,” 1831, p. 282). Hunt’s 
Large Tawny nectarine originated with him at Catton in this way from 
Hunt’s Small Tawny. In 1826 he noticed “a few of the maiden plants 
in the nursery with much larger blossoms than those on the other plants, 
but promiscucusly intermixed among them.” He thought the budders 
had made a mistake, but found that these flowers did not correspond with 
any others in his collection of peaches and nectarines. He potted two 
or three plants, and in 1828 forced them ; “their blossoms still maintained 
' their enlarged character, and were succeeded by fruit which differed in no 
other respect from the original sort than in being larger, yet ripening 
about the same time.” 
- . The extra-fioral nectaries or glands on the petiole and at the base of 
the leaves of peaches and nectarines are of two shapes, either kidney or 
GG 
