PROF. THISELTON DYER ON SCIENTIFIC HORTICULTURE. 11 
plied. Mr. Darwin has grouped together in a most admirable way 
the facts, in many cases very scanty, which he had been able to 
collect before writing his book. On many of these subjects it would 
be very desirable to obtain the fruits of more ample experience. I 
am glad, therefore, to say that Dr. Denny is about to read us a 
paper on the relative influence of parentage in cross-fertilising 
plants, and I think I may point to his work as a proof of the fact 
that some attention to its theoretical bearing is no obstacle to its 
practical success. An accumulation of evidence on this subject is 
very desirable. A more extended study of bud-variation is also a 
matter which I would commend to your notice. Mr. Darwin 
arrived at the conclusion that bud-variations, when they occurred at 
all, usually assumed at once a decided and permanent character. At 
the same time he thought that this might possibly be a delusion 
from slight varieties being overlooked. The attention which is now 
paid to variegated Pelargoniums seems to offer an opportunity of 
seeing whether this conclusion is really true. Again, from time to 
time various curious facts have been recorded with respect to the 
direct influence of the pollen, not on the seed alone, but also on the 
female parent. Mr. Anderson-Henry has stated that the flowers of 
a pale Calceolaria became stained after the application to the 
flowers of the pollen of a coloured kind. Maximowicz has described 
a change in the shape of the capsule of a Lily in the direction 
of that belonging to the pollen-parent. Again, the fruit of 
different cultivated CucurhitacecB has by more than one observer 
been stated to be affected if the pollen of some other kind has got 
access to the flowers. ^Tone of these cases are completely free from 
ambiguity, and the whole matter might easily be tested by those 
who occupy themselves much with artificial fertilisation. The 
instances would certainly be rare, but if they could be established 
free from all reasonable doubt it would be a matter of very great 
interest. The difficulty lies in the possibility of the supposed in- 
fluence of the pollen being really due to a bud- variation. If, how- 
ever, the same kind of variation were to follow more than once in 
the same plant the application of foreign pollen, it would be almost 
certain that this was the cause. A priori we know that it is not im- 
probable, since analogous cases occur amongst animals.* 
* Maximowicz's paper is translated in Joum. R. Hort. Soc. n.s. iii. 
pp. 161 — 168 ; Mr. Anderson -Henry's case of the Calceolaria will be found 
in n.s. vol. ii., p. 77 ; for Cucurbitacece see Darwin, '* Animals and Plants 
under Domestication " i., p. 399. 
