270 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
suggest that some remark should be made, or sign given, in all botanical 
writings, without exception, when plants are put together without being 
considered identical. All the plants above enumerated, understanding of 
course a good cruentus, I believe to be in the florists’ Cineraria, with the 
exception, however, of Senecio multiflorus, and this I am sure is clearly 
notin it. To the Cineraria, however, I shall return, and shall, I feel 
sure, justify my contention. 
Some general observations, based upon these crosses, may be made 
from a botanical point of view, and the chief, perhaps, is that while 
any two species cross with facility, not one can set seed with pollen from 
the same individual plant. <A practically barren hybrid is the result pre- 
ferred by nature, rather than continuation of the pure species without 
crossing. Sterility, in greater or less degree, results from crossing the 
more widely differing kinds; but Iam not sure that it cannot always 
be traced to Heritieri. If Heritiert is crossed with either of the others it 
results in greater or less sterility, and so the Cineraria with others; but 
I believe that Heritieri in the florists’ Cineraria may here be charged 
with the result. The Cineraria itself is not very fertile. Hybridism, 
however, sometimes increases fertility ; as, for instance, in both hybrids 
between cruentus, Hort. Kew., and Tussilaginis. These hybrids, if 
several plants are together, produce quantities of seed by insect agency, 
which comes up on the ground beneath, like Cress. This could not be 
said of either parent. It would be interesting to know how these per- 
fectly distinct species are situated in Teneriffe ; whether they are kept 
apart by natural conditions or what happens when they cross, as in- 
evitably they must do, of necessity, according to experience under glass, 
if they come within reach of one another. With such a case as this 
in mind, it is exceedingly difficult to understand how the origin of 
species could help happening sometimes through hybridisation. Re- 
turning for a moment to sterility, I may remark that it appears to vary 
with the same cross and under different conditions, so that the question 
is raised, among others, whether it is not largely due sometimes to the 
new vigour induced by the cross. Whether this is so or not is worth 
investigation ; but, for myself, I could find no time to follow the numerous 
trails of this kind that cross one’s track. A point of great interest shown 
by some of these hybrids, and one bearing on the origin of the Cineraria, 
is that the shrubby habit of Heritieri is lost by crossing a very few 
times. It was almost a contention in the discussion to which I have 
referred that Heritieri, being shrubby, could not form part of the 
Cineraria, which shows no trace of that feature. It had practically 
disappeared in some of the hybrids named below, and its absence from 
the Cineraria is not, I believe, to be regarded as evidence that Heritiers 
is not in the parentage. There is, however, very strong evidence, to my 
mind, of Heritieri parentage in the ringed arrangement of colour so 
familiar in the florists’ Cineraria. I believe, in fact, that it came from 
no other source. I know of no other allied wild species in which it 
occurs, and though I have had other variations, that particular arrange- 
ment of colour has appeared in not one of the large number of seedlings I 
have raised, save by the known influence of Heritieri. 
A detailed record of the individual plants from each cross would have 
