FEBRUARY. 



69 



evidence from analogy, if there were any general failure 

 to do so. Such an answer is based upon an obvious resem- 

 blance, too, between animal and vegetable physiology, as to 

 the functions of reproduction. It is not necessary to make 

 any account of the exception in the class called mules, to 

 distinguish them from reproducing hybrids, because they are 

 regarded as anomalies. So we say, that every plant, which 

 is perfect in itself, and is hermaphrodite in blossom, is capa- 

 ble of producing seed, the growth of which will not depart 

 from the original type. 



To be convinced of this, it need only be observed how 

 uniformly the production of seeds depends upon positive 

 physiological conditions. Because the operation of these is 

 not always obvious, or is not often looked after, many persons 

 are apt not to perceive the general laws which control all the 

 facts. Yet most persons are familiar with the circumstance 

 that some blossoms bear in themselves both stamens and pis- 

 tils, while others, which are pistillate only, have answering 

 stamens in other blossoms : that is, that both organs are 

 found, though they may be separated from each other. The 

 larger part of the vegetables fall under the first class ; and 

 the cucurbitaceous plants present familiar examples of the 

 second. 



It is upon the peculiarity of this physical or sexual con- 

 struction that the facility of natural hybridization depends; 

 and that facility is greater or less, according to the location of 

 the stamens. And yet, however great this facility, there is 

 nothing in it which in any way contradicts the general law 

 of reproduction, as true in vegetable as in animal life ; and 

 under that law it is that we may say unhesitatingly, that ev- 

 ery pistil, fertilized only by the pollen from a stamen on the 

 same plant, will be sure, if the seed be perfect, to reproduce 

 a plant according to its kind. 



But why then do trees and plants, furnished with blossoms 

 perfect in both parts, so generally fail to maintain themselves 

 in their varieties ? Here, again, we have only to recur to the 

 facility of hybridization; and the answer is, that though ev- 

 ery pistil may be fertilized only by its proper stamens, there 



