A NOTE ON HYBRIDS 849 
continuous observation has produced in my mind a very strong 
suspicion that many of the rarer, or rather of the more thinly diffused 
fication of the genus, or at least has been one great cause of this. 
these probabilities, or possibilities, are kept in mind, and 
should prove to be in actual accordance with facts, the truth of 
that will necessarily be discovered sooner than if they are lost sight 
of. That all forms are distinct species or varieties is equally 
theoretical with the idea that some are af digscos 
evidence furnished by nature that many of the scarcer 
forms of British Rubi may be hybrids i is aaenglg Se iaed by the 
history of their study, and by the remarks about them and com- 
parisons made between them by the most able and ree orp 
students of them. The frequency with which these st eri 
greatly puzzled by them is another little — of c 
evidence. How often is a “ variety ’’ ‘‘ just intermedi ate” between 
the type and some other species, or even one species between two 
others, ee belonging to different groups! As hybrids are 
known to occur not unfrequently, is it more theoretical to Soren 
these slasita to be hybrids, if the supposed parents grow near by, 
than to suppose that they are Saijutien ? In that won bela store- 
house of information as to the different forms pom the Rev. 
ogers 
if it is a cross between the two, in some instances more resembling 
one of its pare i and in others the other. Take R. opacus Focke 
and R. afinis W. & N. var. Briggsianus Rogers. What light would 
be shed on their puzzling relations to one another and to R. nitidus 
W. & N. and R. afinis W. & N., if it onto apes that the first 
two are a ss g hybrid between the last t 
ake, again, R. raat m var. Fassia P. J. M., sometimes 
thought to be a variety of R. corylifolius 8m. This seems in some 
Thes cestions are forced upon my mind, aacagn I believe the 
Rubi ts ae extraordinarily variable also—more so than is always 
realised. 
os reference to cl amsgoh English Flora it may be seen that some 
“the history and true nature”’ of Primula elatior were 
ac 
Mr. Marshall says, ‘‘ the case of the . . . brambles is not parallel. 
How does he wae ? If hybrids occur among the brambles, as he 
