AND CROSS-BREEDING. 157 



Rhododendron " Princess Alice." Now, neither I nor any one 

 who ever tried it, so far as I know, ever effected the inverse 

 cross of R. ciliatum on R. Edgeworthii ; and if they did, the 

 progeny would long ere now have appeared in nursery cata- 

 logues. There is yet one other instance I may notice as an 

 illustration of what I am now contending for. In my former 

 paper I noticed, as an exception to a rule I had found almost 

 general viz., that- European had great aversion to cross with 

 Asiatic species that I had, notwithstanding, effected such a 

 hybrid by crossing R. eleagnoides (another of Dr Hooker's 

 acquisitions, a tiny Sikkim species) on the European R. 

 hirsutum, and of having sent the survivor of the two plants 

 which came of it to Kew, of which, by the way, Dr Hooker 

 writes me, that it dwindled away and died after being a few 

 years in their hands ; but by no possible means could I invert 

 that cross, or get that same very interesting tiny yellow- 

 flowered species, R. eleagnoides (a form of R. lepidotum\ to 

 submit to a cross from any species whatever. 



I shall now advert to the second point which Wichura lays 

 down as a fact viz., that the progeny of reciprocal crossing, 

 whether it is A on B or B on A, are precisely alike. While 

 my past experience goes with what I observed last summer, it 

 may perhaps suffice to give the latest instance. Having, 

 through the kindness of Dr Hooker, obtained seeds of a 

 beautiful new Californian Arabis (A. blepharophylld) with large 

 fine rose-tinted flowers, I felt desirous to infuse that colour into 

 some of the other kinds I possessed. After trying it on several, 

 especially on A. albida, in vain, I at last effected a cross a 

 reciprocal cross between it and A. Soyerii, a white-flowered 

 species from the Pyrenees, something like A. albida, but with 

 glabrous foliage. Of the cross A. Soyerii on A. blepharophylla 

 I have raised six plants, the product of two very largely 

 developed seed-pods. These plants are alive and healthy, and 

 promise an improved vigour over either parent. That the 

 cross was sure I had the best proof, from there being no seeds 

 in the normal pods of the seed-bearer. Of the inverse cross 

 from one weakly seed-pod I raised one plant, which, after 

 maintaining a sickly existence for some two months or so, has 

 died off. But while this last cross was equally certain as the 

 others, like it, the plant had more of the mother than the 

 father in it. In fact, I have oftener found the maternal type 

 most marked in hybrid progeny. I have various crosses 

 effected between distinct species of Rhododendron, where, 

 while the male manifests his presence, the female type prevails. 

 I have it in R. Jenkensii crossed by R. Edgeworthii, R. 



