740 



also ten years ago. The result obtained was a set of plants interme- 

 diate in characters between the parent forms, and perfectly identical 

 with the wild plant, the Geum intermedium of Ehrhart, such as T 

 have myself found growing in Scotland, when botanizing, some years 

 since, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, in company with my friend, 

 our Vice-President, Dr. Martin.* 



The result as respecting forms was in this case precisely the same 

 as with the Epilobiums ; i. e., the vast majority of plants were pre- 

 cisely like each other, with the exception that one or two were slightly 

 more like one of the pure parents ;t and so also with the subsequent 

 generations : they remained like each other, and like the first hybrids ; 

 and to this day the same form continues to propagate itself, by seed, 

 in my garden. 



We have, then, in this latter case, not only an instance of two spe- 

 cies considerably different being csiipable of forming permanent and 

 fertile hybrids, but also the proof of such actually existing in the wild 

 state ! 



My late very dear friend, our lamented Vice-President, Dr. Brom- 

 field, was of opinion that the British Flora presented two other instances 

 of natural and fertile hybrids, viz., a plant referred by Babington to 

 Linaria italica, Trev., and Scrophularia Ehrharti, Slev. The former 

 he supposed to be a hybrid between Linaria repens and L. vulgaris, 

 and the latter between Scrophularia nodosa and S. aquatica. I do 

 not take it upon myself to deny that they may be hybrids, as inferred 

 by Dr. Bromfield ; but it is rather remarkable, that in many attempts 

 which I made at his request, during several successive summers, to 

 make hybrids between the species just named, all my efforts to do so 

 utterly failed, the plants in none of the numerous instances I tried 

 producing seed; while with the Epilobium and Geum I succeeded in 

 the very first instance. Dr. Bromfield, 1 believe, finally gave up the 



* As a memorandum of the origin of my hybrids, I have named them, in my her- 

 barium, Geum urbano-rivale. Tlie reverse experiment I never made, owing to the 

 Geum urbanum not blooming in my garden until too late to obtain pollen from G. 

 rivale. 



f The same slight variation occurs also in the wild plants of Britain, and may be 

 considered as confirmatory of their like origin. The like differences also appear to 

 exist in the German plants, as we find Reichenbach naming as two distinct species 

 plants which more nearly resemble either Geum rivale or G. urbanum, — their parent 

 plants, as I believe ; designating as Geum urbano-rivale the commoner form, which is 

 the G. intermedium of Ehrhart, and that referred to in the text above ; and the other 

 form, which is more like to G. urbanum, as G. rivali-urbanum. — lleich. Fl. Gcnn. 

 Excursoria, vol. ii. p. 5^8. 



