76 HYBRID VERBASCUMS. CHAP. IL 



produced hybrid willows is equally great.* Numerous 

 spontaneous hybrids between several species of Cistus, 

 found near Narbonne, hare been carefully described 

 by M. Timbal-Lagrave,t and many hybrids between an 

 Aceras and Orchis have been observed by Dr. Weddell. J 

 In the genus Verbascum, hybrids are supposed to have 

 often originated in a state of nature ; some of these un- 

 doubtedly are hybrids, and several hybrids have origi- 

 nated in gardens; but most of these cases require, || as 

 Gartner remarks, verification. Hence the following 

 case is worth recording, more especially as the two 

 species in question, F. thapsus and lychnitis, are per- 

 fectly fertile when insects are excluded, showing that 

 the stigma of each flower receives its own pollen. 

 Moreover the flowers offer only pollen to insects, and 

 have not been rendered attractive to them by secret- 

 ing nectar. 



I transplanted a young wild plant into my garden 

 for experimental purposes, and when it flowered it 

 plainly differed from the two species just mentioned 

 and from a third which grows in this neighbourhood. I 

 thought that it was a strange variety of F. thapsus. It 

 attained the height (by measurement) of 8 feet ! It 

 was covered with a net, and ten flowers were fertilised 

 with pollen from the same plant ; later in the season, 

 when uncovered, the flowers were freely visited by 

 pollen-collecting bees; nevertheless, although many 

 capsules were produced, not one contained a single 

 seed. During the following year this same plant waa 



* Max Wichura, ' Die Bastnrd- See, for instance, the ' Eng* 



befruchtung, &c., der Wtiden,' lish Flora,' by Sir J. E. Smitl, 



18G5. 1824, vol. i. p. 307. 



t ' Mem. de 1'Acad. dt s Sciences || See Gartner, ' Baetarderzeu- 



de Toulouse,' 5* se'rie, torn. v. p. 28. gung,' 1849, p. 590. 



J 'Annales des Sc. Nut.' 3* 



rie, Bot. torn, xviii. p, 6. 



