ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



XX. — Gartner's Observations upon Muling among Plants. 

 By the Rev. M. J. Berkeley. 

 (Communicated June 8, 1850.) 

 In the work whose title is at the foot of this page * we have the 

 result of more than five-and-twenty years' continued observations 

 on one of the most important and intricate subjects which can 

 engage the attention of the botanist, that of the hybridization of 

 vegetables. Whether we consider the subject matter itself, or 

 its bearing on many interesting points in the history of plants, 

 such as their sexuality, their vital energies, the distinctness and 

 stability of species, their geographical distribution, their eco- 

 nomic uses, and many other matters of more or less weight, it is 

 scarcely possible to exaggerate its importance. Nearly one hun- 

 dred years have passed since Kolreuter instituted a series of 

 experiments on hybrid fecundation mainly with a view to con- 

 troversies which had arisen respecting the sexuality of plants ; 

 and as these were numerous, conducted with great care and 

 acuteness, and of long continuance, it was scarcely possible that 

 he should not see its connection with other points of interest, 

 though they had not been brought forward so prominently into 

 notice as that to which his views were more especially turned : 

 accordingly his work — which was long too much neglected — 

 contains a storehouse of thought and investigation which is 

 greatly to his credit as an original and careful observer ; and it 

 is surprising, after a lapse of so many years (a matter in itself 

 of some moment as connected with certain theories as to the 

 supposed instability of the vegetable world), that our author, 

 whose experiments, be it observed, were made happily for the 

 elucidation of the matter in hand at the very same place as 

 those of Kolreuter, has found such a strict accordance, generally 

 speaking, with the results produced by himself and those of his 

 precursor. 



Little had been added to the observations of Kolreuter, when 

 the Academy of Berlin proposed in 1819 the subject of hybridi- 



* Versuche und Beobachtungen iiber die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzen- 

 reich, mit Hinweisung aufdieahnlichen Erscheinungen im Thierreiche, ganz 

 umgearbeitete und sehr vermehrte Ausgabe der von der Koniglich hollan- 

 discheu Academie der Wissenschaften gekronten Preissehrift, von C. F. 

 v. Gartner. Stuttgart, 1849. 8vo. Pp. xvi. and 790. 



