1 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
purposely give no examples except those where the most elaborate 
precautions were taken against the admixture of any foreign 
pollen with that which was artificially employe 
I believe that many — imagine that Gregor Mendel was 
the first to use such precautions; but that is not so. Max 
Wichura’s experiments Lainie made some sixteen years before the 
publication of Mendel's results, and some forty years before their 
rediscovery by his modern disciples. Wichura did nothing in the 
way of segregating his hybrid-offspring: he had a limited and 
definite object in view; and this he attained. 
e sometimes hears (n ow that it is known with certainty that 
st ae oe allied plants can often be easily produced, that 
these n produce rooting which are more or vise fertile, that the 
se mine a, neratio of hybrids whose tion is 
ata very greatly Siete with its almost endless aby 
morphism ; and, in proportion to his lack of field-observations, is 
his strength of conviction that the systematist in his work on 
rato is groping in the dark, that, in fact, the aystematist can in 
the nature of the case know nothing about the origin of the 
plants — he investigates. 
It must be admitted that the work of the systematist has 
ves as more difficult now that the widespread occurrence of 
possible, even in the total absence of erage ents, discriminate, 
whenever the distribution of the plants can be studied, between 
natural hybrids and pure species. In the cases af plants which 
are commonly cultivated the difficulty of doing so is indeed very 
great; but even in such cases, I believe that the ascertaining of 
the actual state of affairs is not in all cases altogether hopeless. 
st state that the work of the systematist has, in consequence of 
appearance of undoubted difficulties, pero “i an end, is to 
ie opinions to outrun the actual facts of the 
Because Brunella laciniata and B. vulgaris sicbibls hybridize 
in nature, has it to be accepted that it is no longer possible to 
ga ees pure-bred B. vulgaris in a Yorkshire meadow? Or, to take 
who take a broad view of the fa 
How it comes about that a in spite of the occurrence of 
