538 GENERAL REVIEW. 



which has a spikelet with a few blooms, it came even short of 

 it, having had only two flowers, and these much brighter in 

 colour, and no nearer to the male than the hybrid female 

 parent; but whether this is its true permanent character I 

 dare not assert, as it bore no more than this one spikelet of 

 two flowers. 



" In the first of the above instances the hybrid seemed, till 

 it flowered, a repetition of the male parent; in the second, it 

 seemed, till it bloomed, a repetition of the female parent, with 

 such slight differences in the arrangement and slightly smaller 

 size of the foliage as might occur in a purely normal seedling. 

 In fact, seldom .have I ever seen two hybrids with so much of 

 one parent, and so little of the other." 



V. Andersonii, one of the best and hardiest of all Veronicas, 

 forming a free-blooming seaside shrub in nearly all parts of our 

 coast, is a hybrid obtained by Mr Anderson-Henry in a batch 

 which resulted from seeds of V. salicifolia fertilised with pollen 

 of V. speriosa. 



Veronica Balfoiiriana is a hybrid between V. saxatilis and V. 

 fruticulosa and curiously enough, as related by the raiser, J. 

 Anderson-Henry, Esq., it is not only fertile, but seeds more 

 abundantly than either parent ; and the same gentleman ob- 

 serves "I find its self-sown seedlings to bear flowers of 

 various shades of blue, violet, and red, some having actually 

 larger, finer, and higher - coloured blooms than the parent 

 bearing the seed, -and I am familiar with the same result in 

 other plants" (see ' Gard. Chron.,' 1853, p. 534; or an article 

 on " Practical Instructions for Hybridising," from the pen of 

 J. Anderson-Henry, Esq.) 



THE POTATO AND NIGHTSHADE FAMILY (Solanacece). 



A rather large group of herbaceous plants or shrubs, natives 

 of most parts of the world, especially within the tropics, in 

 which, Lindley remarks, the mass of the order exists in the 

 form of the genera Solatium and Phy salts. They are repre- 

 sented in our gardens by the following genera : Nicotiana 

 (Tobacco), Datura (Thorn-apple), Brugmansia, Schizanthus, 

 Salpiglossis, Petunia, Nierembergia, Lytium (Duke of Argyll's 

 Tea-tree), Solandra, Brunsfelsia, Franciscea, Cestrum, Habro- 

 thamnus, Fabiana, Physalis (Cape Gooseberry), Capsicum, Sola- 

 num (Potato), Lycopersicum (Tomato). The last-named plant 

 is a native of Peru, and, apart from its utility as a grateful escu- 

 lent, it is interesting as an illustration of floral and fruit fasci- 



