278 Herbert's Amaryllidiicece. 



country as if it had been taken from the next garden.* Pro- 

 fessor Rennie has laid down rules, in his A/jj/iabet q/' Garde?img, 

 " for cross-breeding ; some of which are absolute nonsense, and 

 others little to be relied on. The author before us strongly 

 recommends gardeners to prosecute the study of cross-breeding. 

 *' I wish," he says, " I could excite cultivators to try if they can 

 produce across breed between Phycella and Habranthus; but I 

 do not think that they will succeed." He would likewise wish 

 to see Vallota and Cyrtiinthus tried in this way. In short, he 

 wishes to see tried all rational experiments, with a view to ascer- 

 tain natural affinities, and promote the decoration of the flower- 

 garden. He is so full of his subject as to vender it impossible 

 to do justice to his work, save by extracting the whole. " To 

 the cultivators of ornamental plants," he says, " the facility of 

 raising hybrid varieties affords an endless source of interest and 

 amusement. He sees in the several species of each genus that 

 he possesses the materials with which he must work; and he 

 considers in what manner he can blend them to the best advan- 

 tage, looking to the several gifts in which each excels, whether 

 of hardiness to endure our seasons, of brilliancy in its colours, 

 of delicacy in its markings, of fragrance, or stature, or profusion 

 of blossom ; and he may anticipate with tolerable accuracy the 

 probable aspect of the intermediate plant which he is permitted 

 to create ; for that term m.ay be figuratively applied to the intro- 

 troduction into the world of a natural object which has, pro- 

 bably, never before existed in it." He has not half done with 

 the rhododendrons yet. He crossed R. alta-clerense with M. 

 arboreum, and expects the offspring to come near to the father 

 in brilliancy of colour, with the hardiness of the female parent, 

 and thus to effect the only mode by which plants in general may 

 be acclimatised ; but more especially the magnificent Nepal 

 rhododendron. He failed in obtaining any satisfactory result 

 by using mixed pollen. I have failed in a hundred instances of 

 this nature. The fact appears to be, that the most allied pollen 

 in the mixture takes the lead; and the fertilisation, once effected, 

 neutralises the properties of the rest of the mixture. After 

 having clearly ascertained the effect the pollen of one species 

 had on the offspring of another species, I put the smallest par- 

 ticle I could take on the point of a needle on the stigma of the 

 same flower; and, in a short time, I applied the pollen from the 

 other species (whose influence I had ah-eady ascertained) to the 

 same stigma. It had no effect on'it ; but there was a deficiency 

 in the usual quantity. Again, I dusted the stigma so com- 



* The author oi" this article has some observations on this subject, and on 

 liybrid fuchsias, in Vol. XI. p. 580., whicli will well repay the ]ii-actical gar- 

 dener for rcperusal, and which deserve, also, the notice of Mr. Herbert. — 

 Cond. 



