ON HYBRIDIZATION AMONGST VEGETABLES. 21 



divided by such strong features of structural difference as Ajax 

 and Narcissus or Hermione, had yet been found capable of 

 breeding together. I had instituted a course of experiments to 

 bring this mystery to light before the publication of my treatises 

 on Amaryllidaceae and hybrid vegetables, but the results were 

 not sufficiently verified to make me think it advisable then to 

 broach the subject. I will now state the facts and the course of 

 my experiments. The macrantherous or large-anthered Queltias 

 consist of five species, with their varieties: — 1. Macleayi ; 2. 

 Montana; 3. Incomparabilis ; 4. Orientalis ; 5. Odora. Mac- 

 leayi and Orientalis have not been ascertained to have been 

 found anywhere in a wild state, and it is not stated that any 

 person has known either of them to have produced seed. 



Montana is likewise so circumstanced ; but we further know 

 that it was cultivated by Parkinson, and his expressions were 

 considered as implying that the bulbs had been sent to him from 

 the Pyrenees by a Frenchman. The words do not very clearly 

 refer to this plant, but the name by which he describes it implies 

 that he thought it a native of the mountains. But if a French- 

 man had found it on the Pyrenees, how is it that it has no place 

 in the Flora Gallica, and that it has never been discovered wild 

 since the days of Parkinson ? Incomparabilis has been found 

 wild in France, and, I believe, in Bavaria ; and it has been a 

 question amongst collectors whether it was generated accidentally 

 between an Ajax and Narcissus poeticus. There can be no doubt 

 that in every respect, except the smell, it is, in all its varieties, 

 such a plant as might be expected to be produced by such an 

 union. It increases abundantly by offsets, and is common in our 

 gardens, but it has not been found to produce any seed by those 

 who attend to the cultivation of Narcissi. Parkinson states that 

 its seeds are pretty large for a Narcissus, but very rarely pro- 

 duced ; but he gives no account of its having been propagated 

 by seed : and yet, if it had been a natural species, it might be 

 presumed that it had been freely cultivated by seed to have ob- 

 tained the three fine double varieties we possess, as well as single 

 ones. Under these circumstances, I tried whether I could ob- 

 tain seed from it by its own pollen, protecting it from the wea- 

 ther ; secondly, whether it would make seed by any other pollen ; 

 thirdly, whether I could cross Ajax with Narcissus poeticus, and 

 make the very plant. The result is, that I could obtain no seed 

 from it by its own pollen ; and that, although I had at the first 

 one seedling Ajax by the pollen of Q. incomparabilis, the usual 

 result has been a failure in all impregnations by it. Pollen of 

 several other Narcissean plants were applied to it in vain ; but 

 by the application of the pollen of N. poeticus., var. stellaris, 

 one of its supposed parents, I obtained a healthy pod, containing 



