NOTES ON HYBRIDS. aon 
NOTES ON HYBRIDS. 
By Tuomas Mrernan, Germantown, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
My actual experience in hybridisation is interesting though not extensive. 
It began in my fourteenth year, and with the Fuchsia. My father was 
an excellent botanist, and a great lover of rare plants. ‘he plant-house 
at St. Clare was not large, but friends frequently sent him cuttings of rare 
things and flowers of new introduction. Fuchsia fulgens had been intro- 
duced a year or so before, and someone sent my father a few flowers. I 
was the “ garden boy ’’ under my father. Fond of garden experiments, I 
had decided to repeat Knight’s work in hybridising garden Peas, when 
the large amount of pollen on the Fuchsia flowers interested me. It was 
applied to the stigma of Fuchsia longiflora. From the one berry that 
resulted several dozen plants were raised. The largest and best of these 
subsequently appeared in the trade through the agency of Youell & Co., 
of Yarmouth, as ‘ St. Clare.’ An interesting lesson followed. From 
this one berry no two of the many seedlings were alike. Some nearly 
approached the female, some the male; none could fairly be said to be 
intermediate. It was evident that the action of the pollen had not alone 
to do with the variation. Some physiological force, to this day not 
understood by me, must have been co-ordinate in the production of these 
results. 
Subsequent to this I made an experiment with the Diplacus puniceus 
and D. glutinosus. These seedlings were all exactly intermediate in the 
colour of the flowers, a bright orange ; but there were no other differences. 
From the orange colour I named them D. awrantiacus. Others must 
have experimented, and with the same result, for I do not think the one 
figured in the “ Botanical Register’ came from my stock. 
My next experiment was some years later in America. Disemma 
aurantia, the female parent, and Pussiflora cerulea, the male. To my 
surprise the progeny was simply the Disemma. There was no trace of the 
Passionflower in them. To an objection that might be made I will note 
that an intelligent hybridiser knows how to avoid the action of the 
plant’s own pollen in experiments of this kind. 
Some few years later I endeavoured to produce a new race of Fuchsias 
from F’. arborescens pollenised by garden hybrids. The seedlings both in 
foliage and flowers were F’.arborescens and nothing more. To the objection 
that the pollen of a hybrid may have been impotent I may reply that these 
hybrids produce berries frequently with no pure species near them ; and 
though I have not sown the seeds, I have heard of others raising plants 
from them. Moreover due precaution was taken to avoid the action of 
their own pollen. 
In recent years I crossed a flower of Rosa Kaméschatica with pollen 
of ‘General Jacqueminot.’ Only two plants grew from the seeds in this 
one pod. One of these plants was exactly Rosa cinnamonea ; the other 
had all the appearance of the ‘ General,’ but was attacked so persistently 
Zz 
