CROSS-FERTILISATION OF FLORISTS' FLOWERS. 



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CROSS-FERTILISATION OF FLORISTS' FLOWERS. 



By Mr. James Douglas. 



[Rsad August 10, 1897.] 



This is one of the most important matters connected with 

 gardening, for by cross -fertilisation all the beautiful Auriculas, 

 Carnations, Pinks, Gladioli, &c, have been produced ; although 

 until quite recent years the importance of the subject has not 

 been recognised, nor has any record, that I am aware of, been 

 kept, of the first attempt at hybridisation of any of our florists' 

 flowers, which in every case must have preceded cross- 

 fertilisation. 



The selection of varieties, from seed of the original wild 

 parent, is a very slow process indeed, and but little would be 

 accomplished in a life- time in this way. Of course there are 

 exceptions. The Shirley Poppies, for instance, were produced 

 by selecting the most beautiful varieties in each year from a 

 sport of the original wild poppy of the fields, and in a very few 

 years the Rev. W. Wilks brought up to one of our meetings the 

 beautiful but fugacious flowers known as the Shirley Poppies. 



On the other hand, take the garden Cineraria, well known as 

 one of the most showy of spring flow T ers for greenhouse culture. 

 I have grown the supposed original parent for four seasons, and 

 have kept the plants isolated so that no pollen from any other 

 Cineraria could touch the flowers; seed h as been saved, seedlings 

 raised and flowered annually, but there is not yet any appreciable 

 variation from the original G. crucnta. In passing, I might 

 mention that it is much more difficult to obtain seed from 

 G. cruenta than it is to save it from the garden varieties. The 

 plant was figured in the " Bot. Mag." about a hundred years 

 ago, and the editor remarks that its seeds usually prove abortive. 

 But if the plant when in flower is fertilised with pollen from the 

 garden varieties, seed is produced more freely, and the prepotency 

 of the pollen parent is evident in the progeny, which comprises 

 many beautiful forms more like the pollen than the seed parent. 

 The question has not been determined whether the garden 

 varieties of the Cineraria have been obtained directly from 

 C. cruenta by selection, or whether they have been obtained by 

 cross-fertilisation with some other species. Some incline to one 



