266 



Retrograde Varieties 



Constant hybrids have been raised by Mil- 

 lardet between several species of strawberries. 

 He combined the old cultivated forms with newly 

 discovered types from American localities. 

 They ordinarily showed only the characteristics 

 of one of their parents and did not exhibit any 

 new combination of qualities, but they came 

 true to this type in the second and later gener- 

 ations. 



In the genus Anemone, Janczewski obtained 

 the same results. Some characters of course 

 may split, but others remain constant, and 

 when only such are present, hybrid races result 

 with new combinations of characters, which are 

 as constant as the best species of the same ge- 

 nus. The hybrids of Janczewski were quite fer- 

 tile, and he points out that there is no good 

 reason whv thev should not be considered as 

 good new species. If they had not been pro- 

 duced artificially, but found in the wild state, 

 their origin would have been unknown, and there 

 can be no doubt that they would have been de- 

 scribed by the best systematists as species of the 

 same value as their parents. Such is especially 

 the case with a hybrid between Anemone magel- 

 lanica and the common Anemone sylvestris. 



Starting from similar considerations Kerner 

 von Marilaun pointed out the fact long ago that 

 many so-called species, of rare occurrence. 



