Account of some Mule Plants. 293 



annihilated the operation of that obtained from the plant of 

 another species. Not improbably some erroneous conclu- 

 sions may also have been drawn, owing to varieties of perma- 

 nent habits, into which different species of plants have 

 sported under the influence of different soils and climates in 

 a perfectly natural state, having been mistaken for originally 

 distinct species, for I perfectly agree with Mr. Herbert,* in 

 thinking, that the number of species of plants, which came 

 immediately from the hand of nature, is probably much 

 smaller than that now found in the catalogues of botanical 

 writers : and it is also wholly impossible to distinguish such 

 natural varieties from originally distinct species, by any pe- 

 culiarities in their external character. In the present imper- 

 fect and limited state of our information, it is therefore, in 

 many cases, difficult to decide whether plants are, or are not, 

 mules, it being still questionable whether mere natural vari- 

 eties, after they have, through successive generations, assumed 

 very widely different forms and characters, are found to 

 breed with each other as readily, as other varieties of the 

 same species, of similar habits ; and that real mule plants 

 have in some instances, and under certain circumstances, pro- 

 duced offspring, (mules like themselves, I suspect), cannot, I 

 believe, be questioned. 



The principal object of the present communication is to 

 describe two new kinds of mule plants, which have recently 

 come within my observation. One of these presents the sin- 

 gularity' of being, though certainly a mule, in some degree 

 deserving the attention of the fruit-gardener ; and the other 

 affords me the means of pointing out a new species of fruit, 



* Horticultural Transactions, Vol. iv. page 16. 



