350 GENERAL REVIEW. 



tinous or receptive, fertilise it with pollen from richly-coloured 

 varieties, or from another species which possesses some peculi- 

 arity desirable to perpetuate. 



M. Souchet was one of the first Continental raisers who set 

 about the improvement of the Gladiolus as a show or orna- 

 mental florists' flower, and his hybrids were principally obtained 

 by cross-fertilising G. cardinalis, a red-flowered Cape species 

 introduced in 1789, G. pulcherrimus, and G. blandus, a flesh 

 or rosy species, also from the Cape, introduced so long ago 

 as 1744. G. natalensis, a scarlet-and-yellow-flowered species 

 introduced in 1830, and G. floribimdus, a yellow - flowered 

 Cape species, introduced in 1788, have also been employed by 

 hybridisers ; and from these five species fused together through 

 their varieties our races of modern show Gladioli have been de- 

 rived, with perhaps a little of the blood of G. psittadnus ; and 

 G. ramosus, a rosy Cape species introduced in 1838, has been 

 employed by M. Schneevogt, of Haarlem, who has done much 

 to improve these showy flowers. 



Dean Herbert appears to have raised many hybrid Gladioli 

 from such species as G. cardinalis, G. blandus, G. carneus, G. 

 inflatus, G. angustus, and G. tristis ; and these he describes at 

 p. 365 of his * Amaryllidaceae ' as varying from white to scarlet, 

 rose, coppery, and blackish purple, some being exquisitely 

 speckled in consequence of the cross with G. tristis. The 

 beautiful crosses between G. hirsutus, G. recurvus, and G. ver- 

 sicolor are described as being more tender, not succeeding well 

 in the open border. At p. 358 of the same work he remarks 

 that " seedlings from the crosses between the scarlet G. car- 

 dinalis and the white or purplish G. blandus are always dis- 

 posed to degenerate from the colour of the more brilliant par- 

 ent, and approximate themselves to G. blandus, whether the 

 scarlet G. cardinalis was the male or female ancestor. This 

 seeming disposition in fertile crosses to produce seedlings 

 approaching to the least splendid of their parents may arise 

 from the effects of our climate being more congenial to the 

 duller-coloured than the brighter species." G. Colvillii is a 

 beautiful and fertile hybrid figured in Sweet's ' Flower Gar- 

 den,' t. 155. 



The beautiful G. gandavensis was obtained by M. Van 

 Houtte in 1841, and appears to have been the result of a 

 cross between G. psittadnus and G. cardinalis, and now lends 

 its name to one race of varieties which originally descended 

 from it by seminal variation, aided by cross-fecundation with 

 other species, such as G. floribimdus, G. cardinalis again, and 

 the rosy-flowered G. ramosus. One of the first distinct varieties 

 obtained after the production of G. gandavensis was G. ganda- 



