74 General Notes. [January, ; 
plants that are sterile. In most cases where reference is made it . 
has been assumed that they were hybrids, because there was 
some difference in appearance from the normal form, or perhaps 
from the simple fact of sterility alone. The curious Pyrus polvil- 
Jeriana in the garden of the museum at Paris is a case in point. 
This was known in Bauhin’s time, and when the knowledge of 
hybridism was developed, believed to be a cross between an apple 
and a pear. It bore fruit, but it was thought there was no seed 
in them. But in 1860 Decaisne cut large numbers open and 
found thirteen seeds in 150 fruits. In 1864 sixty-two seeds were 
found in 139. Now the very fact of the fertility varying with 
different seasons shows that sterility was in relation to the struc- 
ture in connection with external circumstances, rather than to 
any physiological imperfection in the reproductive organs them- 
selves. In some other locations, where the circumstances should 
be uniformly as they were in 1864, we should have a tolerably 
fertile tree. Seedlings from the tree showed a relationship to 
Crategus aria,and, indeed, from what we know of departures 
from normal types without any pretensions to hybridism, one may 
_say that there is no fair reason for regarding this curious tree as 
a hybrid, or the sterility as having anything to do with the ques- 
tion of hybridization. 
The writer has a tree certainly raised from Malesia tetraptera, 
certainly no hybrid, as there is nothing near for the parent tree to 
hybridize with, which is so different from the parent type that it 
can scarcely be called a Halesia. It is as sterile as the most 
famous hybrid could be. In short, sterility is well known to 
often follow the union of two individuals in the animal kingdom, 
and there are innumerable cases of sterility among individual 
plants. Sterility will often be characteristic of a whole race, and 
often of a whole species; and we may say positively that there 
is no more sterility among recognized hybrids than we find of 
every-day occurrence where hybridization is certainly out of the 
question. 
But let us give the illustrations of fertility in hybrids : 
* %* * Flowering plants furnish the best evidence because 
we know the whole history, The writer of this raised the first 
hybrid fuchsia. Fuchsia fulgens was the male parent and F.. 
longiflora the female, the latter being itself a garden form. These 
two belonging to different sections of the genus, are not only 
good species, but have been regarded as of distinct genera. The 
progeny of these hybrids were fertile. Other hybridists used 
equally distinct species for the male parents, such as F. corymbi- 
fora and F. serratifolia. Alithe numberless garden varieties now 
in existence have been raised from these original hybrids. Many 
successive generations have been raised. There are some sterile 
individuals occasionally, but not more than is found with individ- 
uals with normal species. The writer also obtained hybrids be- 
ERETTA 
