18 
EOYAL UOETICTJLTUHAL SOCIETY. 
enougli tliat some go on, like the specimen sent, to the ex- 
treme development of the leafy calyx, others pass into a pure 
* hose-iu-hose ' form (I have one just now coming into bloom), 
of which the lowest is as perfect a corolla as the upper- 
most, while both are of fine, dark, velvet-like texture. But I 
must defer till another opportunity to allude to the experiments 
I undertook in order to intermix, if I could, the other mem- 
bers of this interesting tribe. I may only observe generally that 
Nature refuses to be driven so far as I had expected ; but in rare 
cases some rare things do result — e.g. in the specimens on the 
cards enclosed (the lower part of a seedling ' hose-in-hose ') where, 
while the upper part, or corolla proper, is red, the lowest part is 
regularly flaked red and pale or ash-coloured white. 
" Self-soim Hyhrid Seedling Buhus hiflorus. — It is well known 
to all who have tried their hand on the Eubus tribe how in- 
tractable they are to cross one with another. Mr. Darwin and 
others of note have remarked upon this ; and I have often tried, 
but with doubtful success, to produce a hybrid between the 
Blackberry and Easpberry, though now I do think I have suc- 
ceeded with the R. hiflorus crossed on the Baspberry. But of 
this again, perhaps. At present I speak only of the seedlings 
sent, which I gather abundantly every year beneath a large plant 
of R. hiflorus growing on a gable, away from all Easpberries. 
At -first I got, perhaps, as many pure as hybrid seedlings, now 
not one pure among three mixed. I send with the hybrid 
plant : — (1) cuttings of an advanced hybrid self-sown, now open- 
ing into bloom ; (2) cuttings of a pure B. hiflorus ; (3) cuttings 
from the common garden Easpberry, for comparison. In such 
small specimens the difference, so marked in the growing bushes, 
is not nearly so discernible ; yet to an educated eye it may easily 
be detected. A friend of mine, to whom I gave seeds, flowered 
the same bee-produced hybrid, and fruited it last year; and the 
fruit, instead of being amber-coloured, as in the H. hiflorus, Avas 
red, as in the Easpberry. It is worthy of remark that at my 
place in Strathearn the self-sown seedlings are all of them pure 
M. hiflorus, with the same milky stems as the parent ; whereas 
here they are all less or more tinted purple, and much more 
thickly set with spines, as in the young Easpberry, which I be- 
lieve to be the male parent, the pollen being communicated by 
the bees. It is due to Mr. Eivers to say that, when writing 
long ago on this tribe, he most kindly sent me plants of a Easp- 
