38 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



than, e.g. in the Orchids. With an acuteness which we can 

 now hardly estimate, for of such knowledge 



Most can raise the flowers now, 

 For all have got the seed, 



Herbert surmised that certain so-called species of Narcissus were 

 natural hybrids, and established the fact in two cases, of N. in- 

 comparabilis and N. odorus, by actual experiment. All this 

 ground traversed or indicated by Herbert I have gone over, with 

 the following results. Nearly all the crosses have been effected 

 both ways, i.e. by using every flower employed both as seed- 

 parent and as pollen-parent. This alternation causes certain differ- 

 ences of form and colour, which will presently be mentioned, but 

 are insufficient to affect the identity of the resulting " species " 

 now spoken of : — 



(1) N. pseudo-Narcissus xN. poeticus =N. incomparabilis. 



(2) N. pseudo-Narcissus xN. jonquilla =N. odorus. 



(3) N. tazetta xN. jonquilla =N. intermedius. 



(4) N. tazetta xN. poeticus =N. biflorus. 



(5) N. poeticus x N. moschatus=N. montanus. 



(6) N. poeticus x N. jonquilla =N. gracilis. 



(7) N. bicolor xN. poeticus =N. Macleayi. 



All these I have raised not only once, but in successive 

 generations for greater surety. Occasionally my crosses have 

 produced not on]y types, ,but very counterparts of these wild or 

 ancient garden Narcissi. Thus from collected N. muticus of the 

 Pyrenees, planted and seeded in my garden, xN. poeticus, I 

 have hybrids which differ in no respect from the wild N. Bernardi, 

 a local Pyrenean form of N. incomparabilis. N. major x N. jon- 

 quilla has resulted in a form of N. odorus new to me until 

 Messrs. Barr lately showed me a variety obtained from its wild 

 habitat in (I understand) the South of France, where, I can have 

 no doubt, N. major and N. jonquilla must grow together. As to 

 N. biflorus, which has by some botanists been rightly assigned to 

 N. tazetta x N. poeticus, while by others it has been considered 

 of doubtful origin, it is curious that Herbert, in his " Amarylli- 

 daceas," sees "no reason to think it a hybrid production, for it 

 does not exhibit appearances between those of any Narcissean 

 genera, or even species." It is undoubtedly intermediate between 



