ON HYBRIDIZATION AMONGST VEGETABLES. 



85 



smaller being from a more arid situation, and that it flowers 

 earlier on account of the colder climate in which it dwells ; 

 meaning, I suppose, where the autumnal rains are earlier. 

 There seems to be a disposition to accept this as sound reasoning ; 

 but what does he mean? I believe neither he nor those who 

 would accept it know exactly what they assume. Does he fancy 

 that the small forms are peculiar to dry and cold situations ? I 

 can assert that the fact is not so. I have found one of the very 

 largest (which I propose to call C. pulchrum) on a high moun- 

 tain in Cephalonia, very near to the small C. Bertolonicum and 

 other diminutive kinds, and I have found small kinds not much 

 above the sea level in Corfu. Does he mean that the small 

 sorts, in which he sees some affinity to C. autumnale, will acquire 

 the stature and proportions of C. autumnale when removed into 

 the soil and climate in which it is found ? The fact is not so ; 

 the small forms remain unchanged in cultivation. Does he 

 fancy that the mean temperature of the southern hills, on which 

 the small forms are found, is colder than the meadows of York- 

 shire, in which the larger autumnale grows ? The reverse is the 

 case. Upon what principle then is it asserted that some forms, 

 permanently very different, are of one individual species, and 

 others in the same genus of several species, because they differ 

 in having the margins of the leaf more or less parallel, or the 

 stigmas straight or bent, and so forth ? There is nothing rational 

 in this ; and yet the whole science of botany lies under that 

 cloud. The true fact is, that Colchicum is one created type ; 

 that it has branched in by-gone ages into various forms, through 

 various circumstances of climate, soil, subsoil, and altitude, and 

 the altered features have become durable. In the sub-division 

 of this genus or kind into existing species or permanent forms, 

 the botanist has to consider, and guess as well as he can by 

 analogy, what are the features which will prove permanent when 

 the species is multiplied by seed in different situations. Culti- 

 vation will bring his specific divisions to the test, in the same 

 manner that cross-breeding is the test of the genera or kinds. 

 No man can be a consummate botanist without some access to 

 horticulture, or at least some attention to its results. The 

 greater number of botanical genera have been formed on the 

 view of dried specimens, in which the parts collapse and cannot 

 be truly discerned ; consequently, I find scarcely a genus to 

 which I have occasion to refer, in which false facts are not 

 asserted, from the want of opportunity or industry to investigate 

 truly and compare its general form with all its occasional varia- 

 tions. In the genus Colchicum, three sepals larger than the 

 three petals which they enclose, the alternate length and inser- 

 tion of the filaments, and the thickness of their base, are, I be- 



