84 



ON HYBRIDIZATION AMONGST VEGETABLES. 



transplantation ; but two seasons succeeded, and those roots pro- 

 duced no flower. A small bulb of a variety of C. vernus from 

 the Splugen had been also potted two years, and did not flower. 

 It was planted out, and no longer failed. What does this imply ? 

 I suspect that the relative cold and moisture of the crown and 

 the base or fibres of a plant is an important point which culti- 

 vators have overlooked, and which may be one of the agents by 

 which local variations have been produced. C. vernus on the 

 Alps, at an elevation of 5000 feet, frequently flowers by piercing 

 the yet unmelted remnant of snow. In that position its head is 

 wet and very cold, while its tail descends to the warmer and 

 drier stone. In a pot at my window the vernal sun warms its 

 head, while the pot detains the wet round its fibres and the 

 evaporation from the pot chills them. The relative circumstances 

 are therefore reversed. When I find that Crocus vernus does 

 not descend below 5000 feet on the mountains of the South of 

 Italy, and that its near kin C. Imperatonius flourishes there be- 

 tween 2000 and 3000 feet above the sea, I cannot avoid sus- 

 pecting that the variation was worked in times by-gone by the 

 difference of position, and I ask myself whether the different 

 relative moisture and warmth of the two extremities of the plants, 

 and not the mere difference of soil and temperature, caused their 

 diversity, and now prevent their juices from co-operating for 

 mutual fertilization. 



I will now turn to the genus Colchicum, not because I have 

 raised crosses therein, which I have not tried, but because it well 

 exemplifies the confusion of ideas that exists on this subject 

 amongst botanists,* both as to facts and theory. Colchicum 

 with great general similarity varies infinitely not only in different 

 localities, but even in the proportions of the several flowers 

 of the same plant. The natural consequence is, that many 

 species have been described, insufficiently defined and not easily 

 determined, to which my own collections can make a considerable 

 addition. A strong feature of difference is size; the bulb or 

 corm of some being large, and the leaves wide and a foot long, 

 while in others the bulb is small, and in one species the leaves 

 almost filiform. Consequently, in R. and Sen. Syst. we find 

 very long dissertations on the question of the identity or differ- 

 ence of several species of this genus, and Professor Bertoloni 

 (Amosn.) refers a lot of them, great and small, to Colchicum 

 autumnale, saying the difference is in proportion of parts, the 



* I wish to take this opportunity of doing justice to my scientific friend, 

 Dr. Brown, having stated incorrectly, Amar. Pr. Tr., p. 5, that the germen 

 growing below or above the flower was undetermined in his order Aspho- 

 deleae. I overlooked the word by which he indicated it, from its being mis- 

 placed, on comparing the definition with that of a cognate order. 



