100 ON HYBRIDIZATION AMONGST VEGETABLES. 



mon honeysuckle with hirsuta, lutea, and Fraser's scarlet ; but 

 the berries of the latter were devoured by a robin. It is ad- 

 visable, in such cases, to tie a cap of muslin over the bunch of 

 flowers, both to exclude pollen and ward off the robins and 

 blackcaps at a later period. I have had a whole umbel of ber- 

 ries, supposed to be poisonous to man, of Haemanthus multi- 

 florus eaten in one morning by a friendly robin in the stove. 



I mentioned in a former treatise a remarkable circumstance 

 concerning the purple hybrid laburnum, on a plant of which a 

 small branch with the habit and nearly the leaves and flowers of 

 the diminutive Cytisus purpureus had sprouted and maintained 

 itself in the garden of my brother. The circumstances, which 

 afterwards came to my knowledge concerning that remarkable 

 plant, are still more extraordinary. In the garden of the late 

 Mr. Loudon, at Bayswater, upon a large shrub of the same 

 hybrid, one of the limbs resolved itself into its elements, diverg- 

 ing into two branches, one of which had the small weeping 

 habit, leaves, and flowers of C. purpureus, the other nearly the 

 leaves and racemes of yellow flowers belonging to the common 

 laburnum ; and those two branches ripened good seed, while the 

 rest of the shrub producing the hybrid blossom was absolutely 

 sterile. The seeds borne by the smaller branch were less abun- 

 dant, and had been lost ; those on the yellow branch were 

 plentiful, and I raised many plants from the seeds, which were 

 kindly given to me by Mr. Loudon. They returned nearly to 

 the form of the common laburnum, excepting that two of the 

 seedlings showed a little purple tinge on the green stalks, which 

 might, perhaps, have extended to the flowers, but they were lost 

 by neglect. In the same season the diminutive branch on my 

 brother's tree bore seed, and from it I raised plants, differing 

 very little from the usual C. purpureus. I have since learned 

 that in many places, where this mule has stood some years, the 

 like phenomenon has appeared. The history of the plant is, 

 that it was not raised from seed, but made its appearance in the 

 following remarkable way: — A number of stocks of laburnum 

 had been budded with C. purpureus in a French nursery-garden, 

 and , the bud on one of them died; but the wood and bark in- 

 serted lived, as frequently occurs in such cases. After some 

 time new eyes formed themselves, one of which produced this 

 hybrid, C. Adami. I suggested, in a communication to Mr. 

 Loudon, that it must have broken from the exact juncture, and 

 proceeded from a cell of cellular tissue formed by the union of 

 two cells, which had been cut through, and had grown into one, 

 and which, therefore, belonged to the two different plants, half 

 a cell of the tissue of C. purpureus having been spliced to half a 

 cell of C. laburnum. The necessary consequence would be that 



