NATURAL HYBRIDISM. 7 



bits to vary from cross-fertilisation. Cabbages vary in the same 

 way. Look at the numerous forms of the common wild 

 Cabbage (Brassica oleracea) for example. Take the Broccoli, 

 with its crowded and swollen head of partially developed 

 flowers; the Brussels Sprout, with a score or more little Cabbages 

 up the lengthened stem, and a big one at the top, and com- 

 pare them with the weedy wild Cabbage, and this will show 

 something of the effects of cross-fertilisation, judicious selection, 

 and good cultivation. There can be no doubt but that new 

 varieties, new forms of vegetation, have been naturally produced 

 ever since the winds first swept over plant-clad hills. 



The difference between plants is most apparent in their modes 

 of living and feeding and working, and if we wish to obtain any 

 real botanical knowledge, we must study life and health, as well 

 as death or -disease. De Candolle, in one of his letters to Mrs 

 Somerville, says : "I advise you above all to see the plants at 

 all their ages, to follow their growth, to describe them in detail 

 in one word, to live with them more than with books." 



I have only sketched out some of nature's more apparent modes 

 of reproducing herself, in order to induce the reader, if possible, 

 to observe for himself. Some of nature's processes are, however, 

 so subtle, so complicated, and so attractive, that a volume ten 

 times the size of this might be written on that one subject alone. 

 The gardener has immense opportunities in the garden, and 

 may by careful study of nature add much to our knowledge. 

 We have the descriptive and arranging or classifying botanist, 

 and the physiological botanist, ever on the look-out for new 

 facts; and if the cultural botanist is wise, he will not be outdone 

 in assiduity, seeing that his occupation is of all the most useful 

 and attractive. Among the most remarkable cases of natural 

 hybrids that is, hybrids in a wild state are, according to 

 Lindley, the following : " Cistus ledon, constantly produced 

 between C. monspessulanus and C. lanrifolius ; and C. longifolius, 

 between C. monspessulanus and C. populifolius, found in the 

 wood of Fontfroide near Narbonne, and mentioned by Ben- 

 tham. The same acute botanist ascertained that Saxifraga 

 luteo purpurea of Lapeyrouse, and S. ambigua of De Candolle, 

 are only wild accidental hybrids between S. aretioides and S. 

 calyciflora : they are only found where the two parents grow 

 together, but there they form a suite of intermediate states 

 between the two. Gentians having a similar origin have also 

 been remarked upon the mountains of Europe." 



Darwin (See Jour. Linn. Soc., vol. x. p. 451) mentions the 

 common Oxlip (P. acatilis x P. veris] as being one of the most 

 abundant and familiar of all natural hybrids, and alludes to 



