24 



OX HYBKIDIZATION AMONGST VEGETABLES. 



without cultivation by seed, unless we suppose that they are all 

 to be found in different localities equally sterile, which is almost 

 an absurdity. How then could they have been made ? From 

 my experience in breeding mules, I said from the first that if 

 Ajax luteus could cross with the jonquil, it would produce ex- 

 actly such plants, and that all the varieties might be obtained by 

 fertilizing the latter by different varieties of Ajax. 



These sentences are printed from a page written eight or nine 

 years ago, and the opinion therein expressed has been since verified. 

 Such plants have been raised both by myself and by Mr. Trevor 

 Alcock near Carmarthen, and, having flowered, have shown that 

 the Linnaean N. odorus, the genus Philogyne in all its variations, 

 is cross-bred between Ajax and jonquil. Concerning the sterile 

 Q. orientialis (Schizanthus of Haworth), I am quite satisfied that 

 it is a cross between Narcissus, either poeticus or albus, and 

 Hermione Italica, probably var. praecox. I have been able to 

 obtain no cross from any Narcissean plant by the pollen of 

 odorus, orientalis, tenuior, Bazelman major or minor. The 

 pollen of the double Roman and Soleil d'or Narcissi of the shops 

 is sterile from long cultivation by offsets. 



I think there is a strong presumption that the whole section of 

 large-anthered Queltias (Amaryllidaceae, p. 413) are cross-bred 

 plants of long standing in our gardens ; and the probability is 

 that they were raised above two hundred years ago in a Dutch 

 garden, either by accident, from the contiguity of the species in 

 cultivation, or more probably by the skill of some gardener who 

 may have possessed the secret of hybridizing them, and suffered 

 it to die with him. It must be remembered, that wherever a 

 cottage garden existed two or three centuries ago, the bulbs that 

 were grown in it, if the climate is congenial to them, may con- 

 tinue to be reproduced ; that cultivators may even have amused 

 themselves with planting a bulb in any coppice or pasture ; and 

 that bulbs may be carried into the fields with manure, or dropped 

 by accident ; and that the existence of some of these Narcissi in 

 particular spots in France where they do not make seed cannot 

 be taken as proof of their being natural species and indigenous. 



There is another portion of the Narcissi which labours under 

 a like suspicion — I mean the family of Hermione bifrons. I am 

 of opinion that bifrons and compressa were both raised between 

 a yellow Hermione and a jonquil, and I entertain no doubt that 

 they can be so reproduced with variation. Not having had any 

 stock of single jonquils, and having been disappointed in the 

 Dutch bulbs which were purchased for the experiment, but which 

 proved to be calathina, I was not able to bring this to the test ; 

 but the crosses which I have obtained between Ajax and Her- 

 mione make it certain that jonquil, which is nearer allied to 



