THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 261 



tingle from head to foot with shame. The jobbing gardener is a 

 master of this chop-down-gutter-forming business, and will always 

 be ready to advise the employment of gravel to fill up the trench 

 that should never have been made. 



HYBRIDIZING. 



[T is undeniable, however much the mere botanist may- 

 regret the multiplication of seminal varieties of culti- 

 vated plants, that to the art of the hybridizer our 

 gardens are indebted for some of their most striking 

 features. In support of this opinion, we need only cite 

 the dahlia, the pansy, and the hollyhock, which in their primitive 

 condition would hardly be tolerated by cultivators of the humblest 

 aims, but which, from the immense improvement which has resulted 

 in their form, size, and colouring, are now justly considered necessary 

 in gardens of the smallest extent. And even in the case of those- 

 plants which come forth from the hand of nature arrayed in charms 

 which it were profanity to impeach, much has been done in intro- 

 ducing a greater variety of tints, in improving the habit of growth, 

 and in combining in one plant the perfections of many. 



We have no doubt that a few hints on the process by which these 

 results are attained, will be interesting to some of our readers at the 

 present season ; and we offer them the more readily, that the operation 

 is of the simplest character, and may be performed by any intelligent 

 person, and upon almost every description of plant. If a blossom of 

 any plant — one of the lily tribe for example — be examined, we observe 

 (in this instance) at the bottom of the flower a green triangular 

 bodv, surmouuted by a column one or two inches long, and termi- 

 nated by an enlargement which, at a certain period after the expan- 

 sion of the flower, will be found covered with a clammy secretion. 

 These central organs are the germen, or immature seed vessel, with 

 its style and stigma. Around them will be found six stamens, also 

 arising from the bottom of the flower, each consisting of a filament, 

 or stalk, and an anther, or case, borne at the summit, containing a 

 coloured substance (the pollen), destined to the fertilization of the 

 ovules or young seeds contained in the germen. When the flower 

 first opens, the anthers will be found plump and smooth ; but in 

 a short period they will be observed to split longitudinally, and 

 becomemealy in their appearance, from the escape of thepollen. These 

 pollen-grains, when brought into contact with the neighbouring 

 stigma, protrude a number of extremely minute tubes, termed pollen- 

 tubes, varying in size from i*Vu to Win of an inch in diameter, and 

 including within them a portion of the contents of the pollen-grain, 

 which consists of a semi-fluid matter termed the fovilla. These 

 tubes, which appear to be formed from the inner membrane of the 

 pollen grain, are believed to penetrate the loofse tissue of the stigma, 

 and to pass down the style to the ovary, where they exert their 

 fertilizing influence ou the young ovules. 



September. 



