1 62 ARTIFICIAL FERTILISATION 



3d. The next illustration I have to give you is of a small- 

 foliaged Indian Azalea, eighteen inches high, which I crossed 

 with the tall and robust shaggy-foliaged Rhododendron Edge- 

 worthii. Two things more unlike in every feature from which 

 to effect a union can hardly be imagined. Yet, with the short 

 anthers and it was with the very shortest I could find on R. 

 Edgeivorthii that I effected it the cross, after careful emascu- 

 lation, was done on the 6th May last. The seed-pod swelled 

 to its due dimensions, and, appearing to be ripe, I cut a slice 

 off it, and sowed the seeds so early as the i3th, and the residue 

 on 28th September last, and I have now got up one or two* 

 plants. If I shall be so lucky as to bring it to maturity, the 

 progeny of this- cross (one never before accomplished, perhaps) 

 should be a sweet-scented Azalea, having a rose variegation 

 like the female parent, a novelty in its tribe ; for though the 

 Azalea siriensis has been crossed by Rhododendrons, I am not 

 aware of any authentic cross, or cross of any kind, between the 

 Rhododendrons and this proper Indian Azalea-. 



4th. I have still further a cross of the same nature, between 

 another Indian Azalea and Rhododendron jasminiflorum, the 

 latter .being again the seed-bearer; and I here refer to it mainly 

 as showing another tendency of this Rhododendron towards 

 natural selection, or rather, perhaps, of sympathy between it and 

 remote species, if not genera, for the Azaleas have till lately 

 been regarded as a separate tribe from the Rhododendrons. 

 The cross was effected in August last, when it again rejected 

 its more natural allies, and formed a union with the Indian 

 Azalea, a late rose-coloured spotted variety, a seedling of my 

 own raising. The seed-pod of this cross is now at maturity. 



5th. But I have now to call your attention to a cross in this 

 same family bearing on Darwin's doctrine of natural selection, 

 or of sympathy, in a still more remarkable manner, which I 

 effected last summer between that most gorgeous of all the 

 Rhododendron tribe namely, the lovely white, large-flowering, 

 sweet-scented R. Aucklandi of Dr Hooker, otherwise R. Grif- 

 fithii and an Indian Azalea, the latter being the seed-bearer. 

 I made the cross on two separate days on two separate blooms, 

 carefully emasculated some time before; and on the same 

 Azalea I tried other crosses with several of the Rhododendron 

 tribe viz., with a fine form of R. arboreum, jR.. Edgeworthii 

 pure, and the above hybrid seedling B (R. ciliatum x R. Edge- 

 worthii]. But while every one of these failed, the crosses by 

 R. Aucklandi) which were effected respectively on the 3oth 

 April and ist May, took most kindly. Both pods swelled; 

 and the seed-pods, though green, appeared to be sufficiently 



