Marca, 1914.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 67 
seen among recognised species. And here we cannot agree with Dr. 
Lotsy when he says that until recently it was believed that crosses between 
so-called species gave stable offspring, while those between so-called 
varieties showed segregation. What has long been recognised is that first 
‘crosses between species show a substantial amount of uniformity in the 
offspring, but when the offspring are themselves crossed a great amount of 
segregation and reversion takes place. And the cause we attribute to the 
fact that a hybrid is a mosaic, and, owing to incompatability between diverse 
elements, does not produce uniform reproductive cells as a species does. 
But segregation is not a universal law, even among hybrids, a fact 
demonstrated by Gartner and Wichura in several distinct genera, and 
alluded to by Mendel when he spoke of “hybrids which remain constant 
in their progeny and propagate themselves as truly as the pure species.” 
And he added: ‘‘ For the history of the evolution of plants this 
circumstance is of special importance, since constant hybrids acquire 
the status of new species. The correctness of the facts is guaranteed by 
eminent observers, and cannot be doubted. Gartner had an opportunity of 
following up Dianthus Armeria deltoides to the tenth generation, since it 
tegularly propagated itself in the garden.” Dr. Lotsy himself exhibited 
a stable hybrid Antirrhinum hybrid that he had obtained from a primary 
cross between distinct species. 
Such plants represent potential hybrid races, and any that exist in a 
wild state might show the usual characteristics of a recognised species. 
And Kerner long ago showed that certain hybrid races did exist in a wild 
state, and were capable of extending their area; and the writer, in a paper 
entitled ‘‘ Hybridisation viewed from the standpoint of Systematic Botany,” 
read in 1899, remarked that such hybrid races might also have existed in 
past geological periods, and that hybridisation might yet have to be 
considered in connection with the very origin of species—all of which 
is, of course, very far from asserting that species can originate by no 
Other means. 
As for the idea that genotypes are the real, long sought-for units of the 
natural system, and that, like Weisman’s germ plasm, they are unalterable 
under all circumstances, that climate and the hundred-and-one conditions 
that go to form the sum total of the environment have no cumulative effect 
during a series of generations—that there are no such things in Nature as 
adaptations—we still await proof. Johannsen’s “pure lines”’ appear to 
represent a condition of things where sexual and vegetative reproduction 
are synonymous terms. 
