246 HYBRIDS BY CONFLUENCE. [BOOK 11. 



of them died; but the wood and bark inserted lived, as 

 frequently occurs in such cases. After some time new eyes 

 formed themselves, one of which produced this hybrid, 

 C. Adami. I suggested, in a communication to Mr. London, 

 that it must have broken from the exact juncture, and 

 proceeded from a cell of cellular tissue formed by the union 

 of two cells, which had been cut through, and had grown 

 into one, and which, therefore, belonged to the two different 

 plants, half a cell of the tissue of C. purpureus having been 

 spliced to half a cell of C. laburnum. The necessary conse- 

 quence would be that a bud formed from that compound cell 

 would derive qualities from both species, but qualities less 

 fixed and innate than those which are derived from generative 

 union. This has been looked upon as a speculation, but I 

 consider it nearly amounting to a certainty, because I think 

 that the consequence is necessary, and that the phenomena 

 cannot be accounted for in any other manner ; and nothing 

 of the sort has occurred to any known mule production, 

 vegetable or animal. Since that time my brother's shrub has 

 put out many of the large-leaved yellow branches and of the 

 small branches, and they are fertile. It occurred to me that 

 it would be a confirmation of my view, if the reverted 

 branches of each kind should keep to opposite sides of the 

 stem ; and on examination that proved to be decidedly the 

 case. Whether that circumstance occurs elsewhere or not, 

 I do not know; but it looks as if one side of the wood 

 adopted the character of one half of the original cell, and the 

 opposite side the other character. I think that clever 

 gardeners might thus obtain crosses between plants which 

 will not intermix seminally." 



In a practical point of view, I am inclined to believe that 

 the power of obtaining mule varieties by art is one of the 

 most important means that man possesses of modifying the 

 works of nature, and of rendering them better adapted to his 

 purposes. In our gardens some of the most beautiful flowers 

 have such an origin ; as, for instance, the roses obtained 

 between R. indica and moschata, the different mule Poten- 

 tillse and Cacti, the splendid Azaleas raised between A. 

 pontica and A. nudiflora coccinea, and the magnificent 



