THE CANNA AND CALLA 59 



Among the most interesting of these crosses 

 was one in which the so-called Lily of the Incas 

 (Alstroemeria — ^not a true lily, having no bulb), 

 of South America, was crossed with the familiar 

 California species (L, pardaUnum), already so 

 often referred to. 



Of some of these hybrids I raised a large num- 

 ber, and they presented interesting variations. 



Some of them, when they bloomed, seemed 

 almost counterparts of the South American 

 parent except that their petals recurved like 

 those of the California lily. Some were spotted 

 like the California parent, and some were quite 

 without spots. As a rule, however, these hy- 

 brids, even though producing fairly abundant 

 foliage, did not blossom at all, and at best they 

 were small and insignificant, and within a year 

 or two most of them had disappeared. They 

 seemed to produce inferior bulbs that could not 

 withstand the winter. 



As further evidencing the lack of virility of 

 these hybrids, it may be noted that all of them 

 were dwarfs. In striking contrast to hybrids of 

 the pardalinum with other native lilies, none of 

 them grew more than a foot in height and many 

 of them not over six inches. 



These dwarfs were rendered all the more 

 striking by the fact that the miniature Hlies re- 



