741 



idea of Scrophularia Ehrharti being a hybrid plant, as no reference to 

 this view is made in his Notes on the plants of Hampshire ;* but he 

 ever retained the belief that such was the case with the plant called 

 by Mr. Babington, Linaria italica.f 



The opinion 1 have deduced from the fertility of the seeds of my 

 hybrid Geura and Epilobium I. feel to be important, because the fact 

 of fertility is generally deduced as proof that the parent forms are 

 only varieties, and not distinct species. I will quote the words of 

 Professor Carpenter on this subject, as they occur in connexion with 

 the remarks I have already quoted from his elaborate work on General 

 and Comparative Physiology. After speaking of the non-fertility of 

 hybrids from different species, the author writes : — " Where, on the 

 other hand, the parents were themselves only varieties, the hybrid is 

 only another variety, and its powers of reproduction ai*e rather increased 

 than diminished ; — so that it may continue to propagate its own race, 

 or may be used for the production of other varieties ad infinitum. In 

 this way many beautiful varieties of garden flowei's have been obtained, 

 especiaWy among such species as have a natural tendency to change 

 their aspect." " There are many instances in which foreign plants 

 that have been introduced into this country under different specific 

 names, have been found capable of producing fertile hybrids ; in these 

 cases a more accurate examination of the original locality has gene- 

 rally shown, that the parents were nothing more than permanent 

 varieties, or even hybrids naturally occurring between other varie- 

 ties. This is particularly the case with many of the South Ameri- 

 can genei-a, such as that elegant garden flower the Calceolaria ; and 

 this is probably the explanation of the almost indefinite number of 

 splendid varieties, well known to horticulturists, which may be ob- 

 tained from the South American Amaryllis."| The general rule thus 

 expressed by Dr. Carpenter with regard to the facility of hybridizing 

 varieties, and the fertility of the resulting forms, is certainly most true ; 

 but, with respect to the opposing remarks, — that the fertility of the 

 hybrids in Calceolaria and Amaryllis, and other garden plants, is 

 solely from the identity, as species, of the different forms of the parent 

 plants, — it appears to me the writer is only begging the question he is 

 attempting to elucidate, a mode of writing, it is due to say, very un- 

 usual with this close-reasoning author. The instances thus cited by 

 Dr. Carpenter are at least unsatisfactory ; and another garden-plant, 

 — the Fuchsia, — would, I think, warrant quite the contrary conclusion. 



* Phytol. iii. 628. f Ibid, 625. 



X Carpenter's ' Principles of Ph^'siology,' 3rd edit. p. 983. 



