HYBRIDISATION AND ITS FAILURES. 83 
other words, its influence has been so prepotent as to arrest all trace of 
the other parent in the offspring. 
M. Millardet, who studied the hybrids between Alpine and American 
Strawberries, called these extreme results ‘‘ False Hybrids.” * 
This peculiarity was early observed, for Gaertner records the fact that 
Datura Stramonium x D. ceratocaulis bore two fertile plants which 
resembled the female except in height. Their seeds produced D. Str. 
normal. 
D. Levis x D. Str. bore: forty plants resembling the male parent. 
Mr. Burbage records somewhat similar results as obtained by Mr. 
Anderson-Henry with Veronicas,{ observing ona particular instance: ‘I 
have seldom seen two hybrids with so much of one parent and so little 
of the other.’ Mr. T. Meehan, of Germantown, Philadelphia, has 
experienced the same thing; for example, he says that ‘‘ Disemma 
aurantia x Passiflora cerulea as the male parent, gave rise to a progeny 
which was simply Disemma,t with no trace of the Passion-flower.” 
Again, Fuchsia arborescens x garden hybrids ‘‘ bore seedlings which, 
both in foliage and flowers, were J’. arb., and nothing more.’’ Lastly, 
Quercus palustris x . imbricaria resembles the female parent entirely, 
except that it has numerous entire leaves as well, which are like those 
of Q. imb., but in venation and all other characters it is wholly 
Q. palustris. 
In speaking of Fuchsia longiflora x F'. fulgens, Mr. Meehan observes 
that ‘several dozen plants were raised, all being from one berry ; but no 
two of the many seedlings were alike. Some nearly approached the 
female, others the male parent. None could fairly be said to be inter- 
mediate.” 
Herr Max. Leichtlin found from his experiments that ‘the female 
parent gives to the offspring form and shape of the flowers; while the 
male parent gives more or less the colouring of the flowers ; and if it is 
richer and freer-flowering than the female, this property is transferred to 
the offspring.’ To whatever degree it may be true for certain plants, no 
absolute law appears capable of being formulated. Thus, Dr. Denny 
remarks on Pelargonia: ‘The result of my experience, derived from 
experiments as regard the relative influence of the parents, certainly 
tends in the reverse direction to my previous ideas, which were derived 
from books, from which I gleaned that the form of the flower and consti- 
tution and habit of the plant were inherited from its mother; while the 
colour of the flower only was supposed to be conveyed by the father. 
The recorded results of my crossings indicate an immense preponderance 
of influence over the progeny on the part of the father in all respects— 
in colour and in form, in the quality, in size and substance of the flower, 
as well as in the production of variegation of the foliage, and in the habit 
and constitution of the plant also, provided the plants employed were of 
equal strength.”’ 
Dr. Denny “ fertilised without much difficulty a variety (Peltatwm 
elegans) of the Ivy-leaved section by the pollen of the zonal. . . . The 
* Hybridation sans croisement, ou Fausse Hybridation (1894). See Gard. Chron. 
1894, Nov. 10, p. 568. 
+ Op. cit. p. 537. 
t A section of Passiflora (Gen. Pl. vol. i. p. 811). 
