SEED SAVING AND HYBRIDISATION. 97 



noticeable characteristic was derived, without the help of tallies or numbers. 

 Not only the plants themselves, but even the tubers, and also the seed, 

 minute as this is, are subject to certain variations, denoting the class to 

 which they belong. Thus the seed of double- flowering Begonias is easily dis- 

 tinguished by the practised eye, and the seed of (single) white and also yellow 

 varieties presents a different appearance to that of the red flowers of various 

 shades. 



HYBRIDISING DOUBLE FLOWERS. 



THE hybridisation and raising of the double- flowering kinds is, if possible, 

 an even more interesting occupation than in the case of the singles, requiring 

 more skill and care, and presenting a still wider field for improvement and 

 variety. The great difficulty in impregnating the double varieties is to obtain 

 pollen of the right sort, for though female flowers are plentiful on almost any 

 plant with double blooms, yet a thoroughly double male bloom produces no 

 pollen, and if pollen from single flowers be employed, the proportion of true 

 doubles among the resultant seedlings will be exceedingly small. The only 

 alternative is to obtain pollen from semi-double blooms, and to this end it is 

 necessary to select and keep in hand a stock of these for breeding purposes. 

 It must be borne in mind that the more nearly double the pollen-producing 

 blooms are, the larger will be the proportion of double flowers among the 

 progeny ; and also that it is very unwise to make use of pollen from any 

 weedy third-rate blooms with only a tendency to doubleness. The pollen- 

 bearing parent should really be, in size, substance, form, and colour as well, if 

 possible, superior to the seed-parent, if any real advance is to be made. So 

 that whenever among a batch of seedlings a plant is noticed bearing partly- 

 double blooms, with bold round petals of good substance and of a clear decided 

 colour, whatever that may be, and of a stiff dwarf habit, it should be put aside for 

 a pollen-producer ; and the female blooms on a plant with fully double flowers 

 fertilised with such pollen will produce a large proportion sixty or seventy 

 per cent, of really fine double flowers. But the best pollen is that at times 

 afforded by plants which when in full vigour produce only fully double blooms ; 

 some of these when starved or past their best, and "running out," will throw 

 a few partly-double blooms, from which a little pollen may be obtained, and 

 this worked on the female blooms of other fine doubles will afford in some 

 cases as much as ninety per cent, of doubles among the seedlings. But this 

 cannot always be obtained, many of the finest varieties remaining double to the 

 last. Starvation, and keeping the plants dry at the root in small pots, and 

 exposed to strong sunshine, are the most effectual means for obtaining a little 

 pollen, and as such is simply invaluable worth many times its weight in 

 gold it is worth making some, effort to obtain. 



When impregnated mark the blooms carefully, and note the particulars 

 of the cross. Encourage the pods to swell and ripen by maintaining a some- 



