THE LILY FAMILY. 367 



half-breeds and crosses between such species and forms . as 

 D. terminalis, Cooperii, regina, concinna, nigrescens, excelsa, 

 ferrea, limbata, and Chelsonii ; and the number of seedlings 

 raised was about 1700, from which the best thirty-six plants 

 were selected, and these will be found described, with their 

 parentage and other particulars, in the ' Gardeners' Chronicle,' 

 1875, P- 615. re gi na (which is by some considered a 

 variegated form of D. braziliensis) was the male or pollen 

 parent in a large majority of cases. One of these seedlings 

 (D. Amalice) was raised from seed of D. congesta (paniculata) 

 fertilised with the pollen of D. terminalis and D. regina mixed. 

 The experiments of Gaertner and Dean Herbert show that 

 mixed pollen does not act collectively, and the law of elective 

 affinity goes to prove that the ovules become fecundated by 

 the pollen of that species which possesses the greatest sym- 

 pathy or consanguinity with the plant fertilised, the other pollen 

 mixed with it being inert or impotent.* We are not likely to 

 arrive at any satisfactory conclusions as to the efficacy of mixed 

 pollen in such a highly variable genus as Dracczna (Calodracon), 

 since, as Mr James O'Brien, one of our most intelligent hybrid- 

 ists, has proved, many of the coloured-leaved forms of Dracaena 

 produce numerous and very diverse varieties by simple seminal 

 variation ; and when a race of plants reaches this state of ex- 

 treme variability, the most systematic cross-breeding is reduced 

 to a state bordering on uncertainty, just as in the case of 

 Pelargonium or Calceolaria. Many of the Dracaenas imported 

 from the -South Sea Islands are merely accidental or cultural 

 varieties, or, as Mr O'Brien puts it, " natural seedlings from 

 plants which have become accidentally variegated" (see an 

 account of Messrs E. G. Henderson's new seedling Dracaenas 

 in ' Belgique Horticole,' 1875, p. 282, 283). Messrs Hender- 

 son's seedlings were raised from D. albicans fecundated with 

 pollen from D. pulcherrima, and seeds taken off the same 

 panicle produced dwarf and tall-growing plants, some with 

 erect, others with recurved, foliage ; while in breadth and 

 colour of leafage, nearly every phase of variation was pre- 

 sented. 



Fritillaria {Checkered Flowers, or Snake's Head ; Crown 

 Imperials). A genus of bulbs, mostly European, and nearly 

 related to the true Lilies, like which they are readily propagated 

 by division, offsets, or seeds. There are some twenty or thirty 

 species, and some of those not yet introduced are very pretty. 



* " The sole effect of mingling two kinds of pollen is to produce in the 

 same capsule seeds which yield plants, some taking after the one and some 

 after the other male parent." Darwin. 



