260 FloricuUural and Botanical Notices, 



Plants Monocotyledonous. 



CCXX XVIII. AmarylM^^. 



Hybridisation may he practised continuously through several 

 successive Generations in certain of the AmarylUdese. — " Ama- 

 ryllis striatifolia concinna \_Mayes'], as we [Mr. M. Mayes of 

 Bristol] have named it, is a new variety, and the first which has 

 bloomed out of a number of young seedlings presented to Mr. 

 Miller, in the spring of J 833, by the Rev. Dr. Swete of Red- 

 land, who is a very successful cultivator of this truly magnificent 

 family of plants. The seed was saved by Dr. Swete, in Sept. 

 1832, from Amaryllis semperflorens, fertilised with the pollen of 

 A. superba; and the plant, which has now [early in Dec. 1834], 

 for the first time at the Bristol Nursery, opened into bloom, is a 

 splendid and distinct variety. It has a fine head of flowers of a 

 bright rosy-red colour, with a broad white stripe extending from 

 the base to the point of each petal, and is very finely scented, 

 like A. vittata ; its leaves, also, are beautifully striped with 

 greenish white, and are elegantly reticulated on their upper sur- 

 face. It should be noticed that both the parents of this variety 

 of Amaryllis are themselves hybrids : semperflorens being a 

 hybrid between A. acuminata and A. vittata ; and superba 

 between A. Johnson/ and A. striatifolia ; and in this plant we 

 can trace the intermixture of this, which may be termed a 

 double hybrid, possessing the scent of vittata, the white stripes 

 as in striatifolia, and the admixture of all in the shape and colour 

 of the bulb, the foliage, and the flowers ; yet its general appear- 

 ance is very different from that of either of its parents. With 

 the production of new hybrids, from seed, of this interesting 

 tribe [the author probably meaning more genera than the genus 

 Amaryllis], we may go on without end. He who is in the pos- 

 session of eight or ten distinct hybrid species may soon, with 

 care, increase them a hundred-fold, by fertilising them one with 

 the other. It has been stated that hybrid plants will not pro- 

 duce seed : but, in the case of this lovely tribe, there seems to 

 be no limit ; for we are satisfied that they will bring their seeds 

 to perfection, even through many generations of hybrids. Again, 

 it has been said that these varieties would retrograde into their 

 original species : we only know that many of them would, in 

 such a case, have a most intricate journey to perform. Many 

 of these hybrids will produce seeds if fertilised with their own 

 pollen, though not by any means so abundantly as [if fertilised] 

 with the pollen of others ; but they will give rise to precisely the 

 same as their prototypes in every respect ; so that the variety 

 may be continued by seed as well as the species. Neither the 

 species nor the hybrids will, we are well aware, produce seed so 

 abundantly from their own farina as from that of others ; and 

 there are several that will not produce perfect seeds under any 



