HYBRIDISING AND CROSS-BREEDING. 91 



varieties, and this tendency appears to be favoured by bad 

 culture. Seedling Fuchsias, if starved, frequently flower when 

 only an inch or two in height; and in a recent number of the 

 ' Revue Horticole,' figures are given of an Ailanthus excelsa * 

 which produced flowers when only four months old, and when 

 the seed-leaves were still attached to the plant. The flowers 

 were male. It is possible that a similar case figured in the 

 'Gardeners' Chronicle' was also a seedling, but we had no 

 opportunity of ascertaining whether this was so or not. M. 

 Carriere also figures a Weigela which flowered when little more 

 than an inch in height. More than 200 seedlings showed 

 the same precocity, and Rhamnus olecefolhis and Pavia hybrida 

 have been observed by M. Carriere to present the like pheno- 

 menon. 



A seedling Cocoa-nut Palm (Cocos nucifera) is figured in the 

 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' 1873, p. 213, and this bore both male 

 and female flowers on a curved branched spadix long before 

 the plant assumed its pinnate foliage. A whole race of dwarf 

 Rhododendrons was raised by Messrs Standish & Noble prior 

 to 1850 (see Rhododendron);. and it appears possible for the 

 intelligent cultivator and hybridiser to originate and select 

 some dwarf and precocious races of our most popular flowers, 

 as well as of those plants which, like Brownea, Amherstia, 

 ^Esculus, and other trees and shrubs do not naturally flower 

 in a small state, by taking advantage of nature's variability 

 or precocious sportiveness, induced by cross-breeding or cul- 

 tivation, since whenever a break is obtained in any given di- 

 rection, the perfection of such variations is merely a, work of 

 patience and perseverance. Poor soil and a light dry atmo- 

 sphere are favourable to either dwarf or variegated plants, and 

 also facilitate the production of flowers. A moist genial tem- 

 perature, with plenty of light and sun-heat, greatly assists 

 fertilisation by hastening the growth of the pollen-tubes ; and 

 careful selection of plump, well-ripened- seeds, from such 

 individuals only as come nearest to the desired standard of 

 assumed perfection, must be specially attended to as one of 

 the most potent helps towards the desired end. 



The late Dean Herbert, writing as long ago as 1842, re- 

 marked that a skilful application of these apparently simple but 

 natural means would seem to be the medium by which it was 

 intended that the life and energy, beauty and variety, of the vege- 

 table kingdom should be made subject to the control of man ; 



* M. Carriere figures a tree of Ailanthus glandulosus in the 'Revue 

 Horticole,' 1872, p. 234, which bore male and female flowers on separate 

 branches. 



