CH. VI.J THE FLOWER. 203 



I think they should find some other term for such 

 species as are not transmutable, and which will either 

 not breed together at all, or which breeding together 

 give existence to mule plants. 



" If hybrid 2)lants had been foiined as abimdantly 

 as Linnaeus and some of his followers have imagined, 

 and such had proved capable of affording offspring, all 

 traces of genus and species must snrely long ago have 

 been lost and obhterated; for a seed vessel even of a 

 monogynous blossom often affords plants which are 

 obviously the offspiing of different male parents ; and 

 I beheve I could adduce many facts which would 

 satisfactoiily prove that a single plant is often the 

 offspiTQg of more than one, and, in some instances, 

 of many male parents. Under such circumstances, 

 every species of plant which, either in a natural state 

 or cultivated by man, has been once made to sport 

 in varieties, must almost of necessity continue to 

 assume valuations of fonn. Some of these have often 

 been found to resemble other species of the same 

 genus, or other varieties of the same species, and 

 of permanent habits, which were assumed to be 

 species ; but I have never yet seen a hybrid plant 

 capable of affording offspring, which had been proved, 

 by any thing like satisfactory- eridence, to have 

 sprung from two originally distinct species ; and 

 I must therefore continue to believe that no species 

 capable of propagating offspring, either of plant or 



