THE GLADIOLUS 81 



parent so thickly that bees and humming birds 

 cannot interfere with the experiment. 



In working on a large scale, it is convenient to 

 place rows of different forms that one wishes to 

 hybridize side by side, so that pollen may be 

 readily transferred from one row to another, in 

 walking along the rows each forenoon when the 

 stigmas are receptive. Also this arrangement 

 allows the hybridizing to be carried out by the 

 hunmiing birds which are always aids in the fer- 

 tilization of these tubular flowers. Here, as in 

 most other experiments, I have found that the 

 results of the reciprocal cross are the same; 

 it makes no difference which parent is the 

 staminate and which the pistillate member. 

 So the seed from the contiguous rows of 

 gladioli thus hybridized may be saved in a 

 single lot. 



New crosses and rigid selection are giving 

 larger flowers, brighter colors, more compact 

 stalks, and a tendency to multiply more rapidly 

 from the bulblets — and especially with greater 

 freedom from disease. The propensity to revert 

 toward the original type of the wild species — 

 small flowers, long slender stalks, closed blooms, 

 dull coloring, narrow leaves, and poor constitu- 

 tion — is being subordinated as the selection is 

 carried through successive generations. 



