HYBRIDISATION VIEWED FROM SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 197 
the process he obtained a fertile race, which he called ‘‘ Aigilops Wheat ”’ 
(44. spelteformis, Jord.), and which, according to Focke, remained con- 
stant in character and fertile after being cultivated for a period of forty 
years. 
I have discovered several curious records respecting hybrid Ericas. 
Mr. Andrew Turnbull, the well-known raiser of these plants, remarked in 
1880 :—“ Many Heaths introduced from the Cape as species are in my 
opinion natural hybrids, as several varieties can be raised from the same 
pod of seed without impregnation.’’ This is not very conclusive, but a 
little earlier we read :—‘‘ With regard to the hybridisation of Heaths I 
commenced that shortly after I came to Bothwell Castle. I was not 
then aware that Messrs. Rollisson, of Tooting, had practised it for twenty 
years before me, . . . and a short time after I saw a list of Heaths, 
said to be hybrids raised by them, and was surprised to see amongst them 
some we had always considered as distinct species from the Cape, and as 
such the date of their introduction, given in Loudon’s Catalogue, ranging 
from eighty to one hundred years from the present date” (‘‘ Gard. 
Chron.,’”’ 1880, xix. p. 179). A note by Mr. George Rollisson in 18438 
is interesting in this connection :—‘‘ My much-lamented father practised 
[hybridisation] upwards of fifty years ago: he confined himself principally 
to Ericas. . . . From the period he commenced, viz. 1790, until 
1841 he succeeded in obtaining nearly ninety varieties,’ a list of which 
is given (‘ Gard. Chron.,” 1848, p. 461). I spent some time in the 
attempt to identify some of these hybrids with wild examples, but without 
success, and anyone who likes to take the subject up will soon discover 
that there is the greatest confusion in the records. A remark on the 
subject by the editor of the ‘‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle”? in 1880 is more 
eloquent than anything which I can offer :—‘ In the times of which 
Turnbull was speaking it was considered by a section of no doubt worthy 
people to be almost an impious thing to raise hybrid plants. It was 
deemed a sacrilegious interference with the laws of the Creator, and so 
strong was this prejudice in certain quarters that some of the nurserymen 
at that day were fain to conceal the hybrid parentage of the plants they 
offered, and to catalogue them as if they were imported species from the 
Cape” (1880, xiii. p. 177). No doubt natural hybrids occur, but their 
identification must be left for the present. 
I may conclude these examples by a few remarks respecting two 
plants which are equally well known, both to botanists and horticul- 
turists, namely, the Red and White Campions, Lychnis diwrna and 
vespertina. Distinct as they are, both in appearance and in the stations 
they affect, there has always been a great difficulty in distinguishing them 
by any absolute characters. Linneus in 1753 made them varieties of 
a single species, which he calledjL. dioica, enumerating a third variety 
somewhat intermediate between the other two (‘Sp. Pl.” ed. 1, p. 437). 
Smith in his various writings adopted a similar course, and in 1824 he 
remarked: “ No solid, permanent sign of specific distinction has occurred 
to me between a and £, though I have much wished to find one” 
(Engl. Fl,” ii. p. 329). Both forms he showed to be common, but 
there was a variety with “ flesh-coloured flowers ”’ found “in hedges and 
fields, but rarely,” which spoiled the distinction. Various other authors 
