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instances out of fifty take almost all its traits from the female 

 parent, as Mr. Parkman has shown, is very remarkable. 

 That, in not a few instances, it should take them all, so far 

 as can be seen, — that the paternal influence should be repre- 

 sented by zero, — is most extraordinary. If parthenogenesis 

 in plants were more unequivocally demonstrated, so as to be 

 placed in certain instances quite beyond doubt (which is 

 hardly the case), then we should regard the supposition which 

 Mr. Parkman mentions as having been suggested to him, 

 namely, that in the case of X. superhinn the embryo was devel- 

 oped without male influence, to be quite as likely as the alter- 

 native of the progeny's inheriting everything from the female 

 and nothing from the male parent ; in fact the two suppositions 

 approximate to the same thing. We are supposing tlie total 

 absence of male parent's characters, and also that the alterna- 

 tive of fertilization by chance pollen of the species is absolutely 

 excluded. Of this there is very high probability, yet not 

 entire certainty. One of Mr. Parkman's "reasons for be- 

 lieving that parthenogenesis had nothing to do with the cases 

 in question," namely, that some of the Lilies were young plants 

 that never had bloomed before, has no application, but comes 

 from a slight confusion of the idea of parthenogenesis with 

 the effect in some animals of a previous male influence upon 

 next succeeding progeny, which is quite a different thing. 



The fact that more than one sort of hybrid may be gen- 

 erated between the same two species, copulated in the same 

 way, must do away with the old mode of naming hybrids by a 

 combination of the name of the two parents, that of the male 

 preceding. The plan had the double advantage of indicating 

 the origin of the cross, and of distinguishing hybrids from 

 species in nomenclature ; but in practice it proves insufficient. 



