ON THE HYBRIDISATION OF THE GENUS ROSA. 43 



sow Rose-seed thus derived, we obtain plants which have peculiarities 

 common to their ancestors and which produce very interesting and 

 extremely remarkable combinations. This view has nevertheless been 

 opposed, on theory only be it well understood, by Boitard,* who held that, 

 as a hybrid could only be the issue of one father and one mother, it could 

 only have a likeness to two individuals. I reproduce here the passage 

 from his book, where this question is fully treated of : f 



" A child can no more have two fathers than two mothers, since 

 it can only be the result of one single fertilisation ; so that, as a 

 hybrid is the issue of only one father and one mother plant, it can 

 only have a family likeness to two individuals. When, therefore, 

 M. Poiteau allows to pass in the ' Revue Horticole ' an announce- 

 ment of M. Foulard thus worded : ' Bosa perpetuosissima, hybrid 

 between Damask, Bourbon, Noisette, majalis, Bengal, Tea, and 

 Centifolia Roses,' M. Poiteau is answerable for a gross error, because 

 a Rose cannot be a hybrid from more than two of these varieties. 



" As regards the single Rose ' Noisette blanche,' in the catalogue of 

 fcf. Vibert, if the season of its flowering and the meeting of its styles 

 are not taken into consideration, this plant must be classed among 

 the Noisettes ; if no regard is given to the time of blossoming and 

 to the fact that its branches are not trailing, then it is a semper - 

 virens ; and finally, if you take into consideration the season of its 

 flowering and certain of its other characteristics, then it is a moschata. 

 People who explain the production of new species by hybridisation 

 will find themselves as much embarrassed in this case as in that of 

 M. Foulard's Rose, because here we have a plant that does not 

 confine itself to two, but to three well-marked species. It is 

 necessary then to suppose that two pollen -bearing parents equally 

 contributed to its production, which is an absurdity, or to renounce 

 for it the system of hybridisation. Some physiologists have, in 

 fact, denied the theory of hybridisation altogether. We are not of 

 this opinion ; but we think that, without saying a word against 

 M. Foulard, amateurs and Rose-growers have very much misused this 

 word. They sow the seed of centifolia, they obtain Roses with a 

 resemblance to the Damasks, Albas, &c, and at once decide that 

 these Roses are hybrids between centifolia and Damask, alba, Sec. 

 This is very much stretching the point. Others, however, are still 

 more unreasonable ; they sow seed gathered by chance, then, when 

 the individuals thus produced are in flower, they study them and 

 class them in an arbitrary manner as hybrids between such and 

 such species, because they think they recognise in them the specific 

 characteristics of the two ; but it often happens that these supposed 

 hybrids were not derived from seed that belonged to either of the 

 species the characteristics of which they appear to exhibit. 



" All cultivators who have sown Roses for experiment know this 

 quite well ; it rests with me to point it out to those who only follow 

 in all things a blind routine. 



" One day, when walking in the establishment of M. Noisette, 

 I noticed some plants of the Pimpernel Rose across a seed-bed of 

 Bengals, and pointed them out to him. He told me that he had 

 only sown Bengals, but that, in spite of the precaution that he took 

 in choosing his seed with every care and attention, it constantly 

 happened that he found Pimpernel Roses among his seedlings. 



* Manuel Complet de V Amateur de Roses, Roret, Paris, 1836. 

 t Lyon Horticole, 1899, p. 15. 



