The following paper on "Suggestions for the Classification of Hybrids," by R. T. 

 Lynch, Curator of the Botanic Garden, Cambridge, England, was read by the Secretary: 



CLASSIFICATION OF HYBRIDS 



By R. I. Lynch, Cambridge. 



The most important suggestion I could make is tliat attention be drawn 

 at this conference to the importance of classifying all experimental results. 

 Investigators often want to know what plants have been found to behave in 

 this or that particular way. They may desire to reobserve from a new point 

 of view or to carry further the results in which they may be interested. The 

 classification I have in view would always be valuable for reference, and 

 would assist, I think, very largely in the determination of laws yet unknown. 



What I mean is illustrated (as to hybrids) by work I have done myself 

 in a paper on the Evolution of Plants in the journal of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society of London, Vol. XXV. Some of my headings are very nearly as 

 follows : 



Bigeneric hybrids, fertile and true from seed. 

 Bigeneric hybrids, infertile. 



Hybrids which come true from seed, never reverting. 

 Hybrids that are more fertile than either parent. 

 Hybrids which return, in a generation or tw'o, to parent species. 

 Wild hybrids which take a position independently of either parent 

 and are equal to "species," etc., etc. 

 It would be of interest, for instance, to collect examples of hybrids 

 which at first were found nearly barren and which afterward became fertile- 

 instances, also, of hybrids that are less fertile with either parent than 

 with self. 



In this way, I am sure, much could be done of value, in suggestiveness, 

 for the hybridist who is concerned only in practical results. 



My plan, I think, would be to ask the members of the conference to 

 suggest all the heads they can think of — thus perhaps securing fresh ideas 

 otherwise unexpressed — and afterward to circulate these heads (after editing) 

 with the request that as many instances as possible should be given 

 below them. 



Writers most usually, 1 think, adopt a botanical classification of natural 

 orders, as does Focke in his Pflanzen-Mischlinge, but from the trouble I have 

 had myself in seeking out examples of this or that behavior I feel sure that 

 much advantage would be derived by classifying in accordance with behavior 

 itself, "infinite" though it may be in point of variety. 



