106 
ROTAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
fact I looked upon it as another of the many failures I had had 
in my attempts to effect the inverse cross on it. "When it at last 
bloomed, my hopes of having effected a partial cross, if I may use 
such a term, were strengthened. Like V. Davheneyiana, which 
has a spikelet with a few blooms, it came even short of it, having 
had only two flowers, and these much lighter in colour, and no 
nearer to the male than the hybrid female parent ; but whether 
this is its true permanent character I dare not assert, as it bore 
no more than this one spikelet of two flowers. 
In the first of the above instances the hybrid seemed, till it 
flowered, a repetition of the male parent; in the second, it seemed, 
till it bloomed, a repetition oi female parent, with such slight 
differences in the arrangement and slightly smaller size of the 
foliage as might occur in a purely normal seedling. In fact, sel- 
dom have I ever seen two hybrids with so much of one parent 
and so little of the other. 
I have no doubt something of the same kind occurs among 
Mhododendrons. But I may only instance one case where I 
crossed B. EdgwortJiii on R. caucasicum ; the seedlings, ever few 
when the cross is a severe one (by which term I mean such in- 
stances as where the species do not affect each other kindly), were 
only two in number ; and though now about ten years old they 
show no indications of setting for flower. But while they have 
both the glahrous foliage of the seed-bearer, and even the ochreous 
tint underneath, they differ in having pyriform instead of its 
lanceolate leaves. But though in these particulars they depart 
from the normal state of j5. caucasicum, they have not one feature 
of B. Edgworthii, the male parent. The other case is where I 
crossed the same B. EdgwortJiii on B. Jenkinsii. Here the seed- 
lings, again only two in number, were all of the mother, except in 
having again the pyriform foliage, in which, be it observed, it is a 
departure from both parents, both having lanceolate leaves, those 
of B. Jenhinsii being acutely so. The hybrid in this latter case 
is budded for flower ; but the flowers of both parents are white, 
and both sweet-scented, and among the largest of the genus, 
though the scent, texture, and forms of the flowers are different ; 
so that I look for surer tests in the coming flowers, though these 
may be more perplexing too than any that yet appears. It is 
proper to observe that I take the utmost precaution in all my 
crossing-operations to prevent miscarriage in any possible way. 
While treating of my difficulties with this B. EdgwortJiii, one 
