222 M. Ch. Naiidin on Hyhridity in Plants. 



good grains deposited on their stigmas far exceeded that of 

 the ovules which were developed into seeds. 



This, it is true, is only hypothetical, but it is extremely 

 probable. It remains to be confirmed by the anatomical 

 examination of the ovule, and it would be very interesting 

 to discover in what part the defectiveness exists ; but this 

 is a peculiar kind of research, very difficult, very minute, 

 often uncertain in its results, and which one cannot enter 

 upon without being well accustomed to it, and provided with 

 excellent instruments, two things in which I am deficient. 



I therefore contented myself with verifying experimen- 

 tally the fecundity or the sterility of the ovaries, which was 

 more expeditious, and probably more conclusive ; but it is 

 not less a subject to be recommended to professed micro- 

 graphers. - 



That the sterilising action of hybridisation exerts much 

 more force on the pollen than on the ovules is a most indu- 

 bitable fact, and one well known to all hybridologists. This 

 need not surprise us, since the pollen is, of all parts of the 

 plant, the most elaborated, the most animalised, if such 

 an expression can be used. Frequent chemical analyses 

 prove that it is in these granules that the phosphorised 

 and azotised materials are more accumulated than else- 

 where, and thus it may be conjectured that it is this 

 high organisation which is injured in hybrids, where the 

 whole vegetation suffers from the disturbance which re- 

 sults from the intermixture of two specific essences created 

 to live separately. The hybrids of which I have given an 

 account present several examples. We have seen that 

 Mirahilis longifloro-Jalapa yields pollen unfit for fertilisa- 

 tion, whether it be applied upon the stigmas of the hybrid, or 

 upon those of its two parents, whilst in twenty-one attempts 

 to impregnate it with the pollen of these last {M. longiflora 

 and M. Jalapa), there was only one which took effect, and 

 enlarged the ovary. This result is quite in accordance with 

 those which M. Lecoq (" Eevue Horticole," 1853, pp. 185 

 et 207) announced that he obtained from the same hybrid, 

 the pollen of which he always found useless, but he was 

 able to fertilise it by that of M. Jalapa. The difference in 

 the strength of the pollen and the ovules becomes still more 



