26 



ON HYBRIDIZATION AMONGST VEGETABLES. 



and Narcissus poeticus or albus, gracilis from the larger Narcissus, 

 tenuior from the diminutive pale poeticus which I have had from 

 Florence ; and I have more than once had seed from N. poeticus 

 by the jonquil, which would indubitably have produced N. gra- 

 cilis, but the seedlings have been neglected and the labels mis- 

 laid. Neither gracilis nor tenuior have been known to bear seed, 

 nor has any native locality been assigned to them. I believe 

 them to have sprung from the larger and smaller varieties of 

 poeticus. That Bazelman major and minor of the shops, and 

 Sweet's Hermione Cypri are the produce of poeticus and a white- 

 limbed Hermione, and N. bifrons and compressus of Tazetta and 

 jonquil, I consider to be as certain, as if I had obtained them 

 from seed, and I have not troubled myself to make the like. 



There is ample room for further experiments in this race of 

 plants, from which much vernal beauty for our gardens and 

 rooms may be obtained, and even the curious little autumnal 

 Narcissus and the autumnal green jonquil may be brought into 

 action. But the great value of these experiments lies in the 

 strong light they throw on the wide variation which the Almighty 

 has permitted from his created type with licence to revert towards 

 the abandoned form, and by intermixture to produce new forms, 

 while in other races, which exhibit less diversity of form amongst 

 the species, the variation seems fixed. There cannot be more 

 perfect similarity of structure and habit, excepting a difference in 

 the size of the seeds, in any two plants of different species than 

 in Schizanthus pinnatus and retusus, and yet I have tried so 

 many chances on both plants without success that I believe they 

 will not intermix at all. The same observations apply precisely 

 to Anomatheca juncea. 



"While the foregoing sentences were in the press, a curious 

 anomaly in the strange race of plants of which I have been treat- 

 ing (the Narcissi) has come to light, though we had some 

 obscure notices before of such a tendency in the genus ; I mean 

 the obliteration of its cup ; which was ingeniously compared by 

 a friend of mine to the removal of the part of the hero from the 

 tragedy of Hamlet. N. deficiens, mihi, from Sta. Maura, has 

 no cup that I can distinguish without a magnifier, and the little 

 ridge that exists is imperfect, and in some of the plants takes the 

 form of six minute separate teeth. The cup had been dwindling 

 away to little in the other known autumnal species, and we 

 have an obscure notice of an eight-flowered Narcissus obliteratus, 

 said to be found near Mogadore. This suggests to me so strong 

 an illustration of the probable origin of races and their departure 

 from one point, that I must be permitted to pursue the subject a 

 little further. N. deficiens has one or two short, slender, cylin- 

 drical leaves, just like the flower-stalk, and one small white star- 



