cxxxviii 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I have, with more elegant individual flowers, which, however, 

 as I am again experimenting, I cannot part with. 



Of all these the "hose in hose " was the male parent ; for it 

 failed to reciprocate the crosses which I made with it, unlike its 

 progeny of the same brood with those sent, which seem to take on 

 crosses from other Polyanthuses freely. 



In all my crossings among the Primulacece I paid rigid atten- 

 tion to the requirements of Darwin's dimorphic law. 



Yet I have had cases where its application was not called for. 

 I refer in especial to another Primula, peculiar too, I believe, to the 

 district in Perthshire to which I have referred, — a 5^e-flowered 

 species, which, though a proper primrose in its general character, 

 yet occasionally throws up a spike in the Polyanthus form. But 

 in either case, the stamens and style are of about equal lengths, 

 with the anthers and stigma pressing against each other. As I 

 note upon the tally " stigma superior " or " stigma inferior," I felt 

 at a loss, on repeated observations, which character to assign to 

 it. For while they sometimes were of the same elevation, they 

 occasionally varied, and I have in some blooms found the stigma 

 slightly overtopping the anthers, though in general the inverse 

 holds. Hence self-fertilization takes place in this species. 



The same remarks apply to any plants I have examined of the 

 P. denticulata. 



I have been unable to effect any change on the Primula poly- 

 anthus by fertilizing with P. Sinensis. I got, in several cases, 

 seeds to ripen ; but though I took every care I could to prevent 

 foreign intervention or self-fertilization, the latter must have taken 

 place ; for of all I have yet flowered, the progeny are all after the 

 mother, true Polyanthuses. Yet I do believe the blood of the P. 

 Sinensis must be in them ; and I am this year trying how far, 

 according to the ideas I before expressed, this may not tend to 

 bridge the difficulty, and so effect communion where affinity has 

 first been communicated. 



The P. Sinensis obstinately held out against all foreign alliances 

 whatever. It affords in this one of many instances I have had, of 

 one species resisting all kindred species. And yet I have found 

 such kindred species often prevail in the inverted cross; but 

 never the P. Sinensis, which, I humbly incline to the belief, 

 should form a tribe by itself. 



On all the forms I possessed or could obtain of the Primulacece 

 I made experiments, the P. cortusoides, P. mollis, P. involucrata, 



