186 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The hybrid origin of Gewm intermedium has long been known. Dr. 
Bell-Salter has recorded how, acting on a suggestion which had been 
thrown out that it was a hybrid, he crossed G. rivale with pollen of G. 
urbanum, and the resulting seedlings proved exactly identical with the 
wild plant. It also proved fertile, and reproduced itself true from seed 
(“ Phytologist,” iv. p. 739). Giirtner also raised it both from the same and 
the reverse cross, and it is known to occur spontaneously in gardens where 
the two species are cultivated together. Gewm coccinewm 9 and G. 
rivale g were also crossed by Girtner, and yielded a hybrid which has 
been found in the Rhodope mountains by Janka. 
The willows are now known to hybridise with the greatest facility in 
a wild state, though the early salicologists were mostly unwilling to 
recognise the fact. By degrees, however, the probability of the pheno- 
menon was admitted, and Wichura demonstrated the truth of these 
suppositions by raising artificially forms identical with those which had 
long been known in a wild state. The Rev. E. F. Linton has also raised 
several hybrids in his garden at Bournemouth, and has kindly supplied 
me with a few facts for the present paper. Wichura appears to have 
raised artificially eight hybrids which also occur wild, to which Linton 
has added at least six others, a few of which may now be considered. 
Salix rubra was for many years ranked as a widely diffused species, yet 
Wichura obtained it artificially by crossing S. purpurea with the pollen of 
S. viminalis. Linton also raised it as a seedling from a viminalis catkin, 
which had evidently been pollinated with S. purpurea, probably by bees. 
The others raised by Linton are as follows :—S. repens? x purpuread 
yielded S. Doniana, Sm., originally described as a species by Smith. 
S. viminalis ? x repens 8 produced several seedlings agreeing well with 
S. rosmarinifolia, L., as figured in Sowerby and Smith’s “ English 
Botany,” t. 1865 (t. 1363 of ed. 3), which Wimmer considered as 
representing this cross. S. viminalis x triandra produced S. hippophar- 
folia, Thuil., which was originally described as a species, but afterwards 
considered to be a hybrid with this parentage by Wimmer. Wichura 
records three unsuccessful attempts to raise this hybrid, in 1856, 1857, and 
1858, S. triandra being used as the seed parent (‘‘ Bastardbefr. Pflan- 
zenr.,” p.13). S. repens 2? x Lapponum g produced a hybrid agreeing well 
with wild specimens from Sweden. S. phylicifolia? x herbacea g yielded 
a hybrid strongly resembling S. Moorei, which is believed to have 
originated from this cross (‘‘Journ. of Bot.,” 1896, p. 470). Finally 
S. Lapponum@ x phylicifolia 8 yielded a very variable hybrid, which has 
since helped to determine the origin of a wild Scotch plant. A few 
crosses entirely failed—indeed the process is said to be liable to all sorts 
of miscarriages—and a few others yielded hybrids not yet recognised in 
Britain, but the results are certainly valuable and suggestive. 
Some of these proved hybrids, as we have already seen, were originally 
described as species, as were also many others whose hybrid origin is now 
fully recognised. In 1830 Sir J. EH. Smith recognised sixty-four British 
species of Salix (** Engl. FI.,” ed. 2, iv. pp. 163-233. ‘* Full thirty years,” 
he observes, ‘‘ have I laboured at this task [of specific distinction], ten of 
them under the instructive auspices of my late friend Mr. Crowe, in whose 
garden every Willow that could be got was cultivated. . . . The plants 
