76 HYBRID VERBASCUMS. Chap. II. 



produced hybrid willows is equally great.* Numerous 

 spontaneous hybrids between several species of Cistus, 

 found near Narbonne, have been carefully described 

 by M. Timbal-Lagrave,! and many hybrids between an 

 Aceras and Orchis have been observed by Dr. Weddell. X 

 In the genus Verbascum, hybrids are supposed to have 

 often originated § in a state of nature; some of these un- 

 doubtedly are hybrids, and several hybrids have origi- 

 nated in gardens; but most of these cases require, || as 

 Gartner remarks, verification. Hence the following 

 case is worth recording, more especially as the two 

 species in question, V. thapsiis and lychnitis, are per- 

 fectly fertile when insects are excluded, showing that 

 the stigma of each flower receives its own pollen. More- 

 over the flowers offer only pollen to insects, and have 

 not been rendered attractive to them by secreting 

 nectar. 



I transplanted a young wild plant into my garden 

 for experimental purposes, and when it flowered it 

 plainly differed from the two species just mentioned 

 and from a third which grows in this neighbourhood. I 

 thought that it was a strange variety of V. thapsus. It 

 attained the height (by measurement) of 8 feet ! It 

 was covered with a net, and ten flowers were fertilised 

 with pollen from the same plant; later in the season, 

 when uncovered, the flowers were freely visited by 

 pollen-collecting bees; nevertheless, although many 

 capsules were produced, not one contained a single 

 seed. During the following year this same plant was 



* Max Wiohnra, ' Die Bastard- ? See, for instance, the ' Eng- 



hefruchtnng, &c., der Weiden,' lish Flora,' by Sir J. E. Smith, 



1865. 1824, vol. i. p. 307. 



t ' M^m. de I'Acad. des Sciences || See Gartner, ' Bastarderzen- 



de Toulouse,' 5» s6rie, torn. v. p. 28. gung,' 1849, p. 590. 



t ' Annales des So. Nat.,' 3» s^rie, 

 Bot. torn, xviii. p. 6. 



