158 MY GARDEN 



they should dwell therein ; but our " gladwin," with 

 its strange smell, splendid dark foliage, and glorious 

 scarlet corals of fruit in autumn, has always appealed 

 to me as a fellow-Devonian, and I have wondered 

 whether culture and crossing with other apogons 

 might not produce something that should possess a 

 finer bloom than fcetidissima, and yet retain its unique 

 and brilliant fruit. Of course, I knew that what 

 mortal man could do in this matter had indubitably 

 been done, and accordingly wrote to Sir Michael 

 Foster. As I suspected, he had made exhaustive 

 experiments, but, so far, without any very encourag- 

 ing results. He tells me that for years he has worked 

 with fcetidissima, using the pollen of spuria, Monnieri, 

 aurea, ochroleuca, sibirica, and others. Seeds have 

 appeared in some cases ; but very few germinated. 

 Two, however, actually flowered, and they showed 

 no trace of anything but their mother. Here ap- 

 pears a sort of partheno-genesis excited by the 

 pollen, though the pollen did not actually enter into 

 the embryo. "This," says Sir Michael, "may seem 

 heresy, but there are facts recently observed in ani- 

 mals, as well as plants, which lend it some support." 

 He continues, " I believe I. fcetidissima to be a 

 very ancient archaic iris. It has a wide geographi- 

 cal distribution, and yet varies very little and then 

 only in colour (which is a trifle) and in size. Its 

 characters, from its great age, are so deeply stamped 

 on it that it will not, like the parvenus (pallida, 

 &c. &c.), take to foreign pollen." He urges further 

 experiments, and characteristically remarks, "There 



