HYBRIDISATION VIEWED FROM SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 195 
appeared as a wild hybrid among importations of D. nobile. HKxamples 
of D. awrewm also occur in the same importations (‘‘ Orch. Rev.,” 1899, 
p. 99). Had the event occurred prior to 1874, when the seedlings which 
were obtained by Dr. Ainsworth by crossing these two species together 
. flowered for the first time, the plant would almost certainly have been 
described as a species. 
Fie. 100.—DeEnpropium x AInswortHu. (Gardeners’ Chronicle.) 
At Chiswick yesterday plants were exhibited of a very curious 
hybrid Fern raised by Mr. E. J. Lowe between Scolopendriwm vulgare 
and Ceterach officinarwm, and which unmistakably combines the 
characteristics of these two species, which are remarkably distinct both in 
appearance and in the stations they affect. It is interesting to note 
that a wild hybrid between them has also been found, in Istria, and 
described under the name of Scolopendriwm hybridum (“ Kern. Nat. 
Hist. Pl.,” ii. p. 582). I have not seen the latter, so cannot say how far 
the two are identical. 
A question much discussed many years ago was the supposed develop- 
ment of cultivated Wheat from the wild Agilops by cultivation. The 
facts, however, are briefly these. gilops triticoides occurs spontaneously 
in Southern Europe along the edges of Wheat fields, and for various 
reasons was supposed to be a hybrid between the Wheat and gilops 
ovata, a small grass which occurs there. Over half-a-century ago Faber 
grew this plant from a seed of 4. ovata, and it was afterwards produced 
artificially by many experimenters, thus proving its hybrid origin. This 
hybrid proved mostly sterile, but at length, in 1838, Faber obtained a seed- 
ling which proved to be more like Wheat and more fertile, and by continuing 
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