304 
SPECIES, VARIETIES, AND HYBRIDS. 
The facility with which the new species, 
so called, are made to aid the object of the 
florist, in the production of cross breeds, 
ought to teach people to be less inclined to 
call things species ; for we are much of Mr. 
Knight's opinion, that if plants will breed 
well together, they must either be the same 
species or produce mules, whereas we find the 
so-called hybrids producing seed as plenti- 
fully as the parents did. Mr. Knight, in 
following up the subject, says : — 
" I sent to the Society, some years ago, a 
fiuit which sprang from a seed of a sweet 
almond and the pollen of a peach blossom, 
and which in every respect presented the 
character of a perfectly melting peach. When 
the tree, which afforded that fruit, first pro- 
duced blossoms, I introduced into them the 
pollen of another peach tree, with the view 
of obtaining more improved varieties of the 
peach of this family : and the necessary pre- 
paration of such blossoms prevented my no- 
ticing an imperfection which I have since 
observed in them. Little or no pollen is ever 
produced in them ; and- though the tree has 
borne well subsequently upon the open wall, 
and has produced perfect seeds without any 
particular attention having been paid to it, I 
suspect that its blossoms have been fecun- 
dated by those of some adjoining nectarine 
trees. Having, however, often observed that 
varieties of the same acknowledged identical 
. species, when one was in a highly cultivated, 
and the other in a perfectly wild state, did 
not readily succeed when grafted upon each 
other, owing, probably, to the very different 
qualities of their circulating fluids, I con- 
ceived it possible that the same causes might 
have prevented a perfect union at once taking 
place between the almond and peach tree. I 
therefore waited till I had an opportunity 
of observing, in the last summer, the blossoms 
of a second generation, which proved in every 
respect as imperfect as those of the first tree, 
■and like those, afforded fruit and perfect 
seeds with the pollen of an adjoining nectarine 
tree. This result, which I did not anticipate, 
appears interesting : but I hesitate in draw- 
ing at present any inferences from it."* 
This is so far curious; but we have abundant 
* Since the foregoing observations Avere addressed 
to tlie Horticultural Society, a tree whicli sprang from 
a seed of a Sweet Almond and pollen of the early Violet 
Nectarine, has produced a profusion of perfectly well 
organized blossoms, with abundant pollen ; after hav- 
ing, in three preceding years, afforded imperfect 
blossoms only. If such pollen prove efficient, which 
I see no reason to doubt, either the specific identity 
of the Peach and Almond, or the transmutability of 
the two species, will be proved. But if the Peach be 
an originally distinct species, where could it have lain 
concealed from the creation to the reign of Claudius 
Cffisar 1 
proofs of the fact, that even tender and hardy 
plants may be fertilized by each other, and 
the offspring partake of both parents ; more- 
over, that they will seed freely, and, if seeded 
away from all others, or fertilized by them- 
selves, produce, as near as may be, plants 
very like themselves. Mr. Knight mentions 
his conviction that a plant produced by two 
distinct species would, to all intents and pur- 
poses, be barren ; and he says : — 
*' If hybrid plants had been formed as 
abundantly as Linnaeus and some of his fol- 
lowers have imagined, and such had proved 
capable of affording offspring, all traces of 
genus and species must surely long ago have 
been lost and obliterated ; for the seed vessel 
even of a monogynous blossom often affords 
plants which are obviously the offspring of 
different male parents ; and I believe I could 
adduce many facts which would satisfactorily 
prove that a single plant is often the offspring 
of more than one, and, in some instances, of 
many male parents. Under such circum- 
stances every species of plant which, either 
in a natural state, or cultivated by man, has 
been once made to sport in varieties, must al- 
most of necessity continue to assume variations 
of form. Some of these have often been found 
to resemble other species of the same genus, 
or other varieties of the same species, and of 
permanent habits, which were assumed to be 
species ; but I have never yet seen a hybrid 
plant capable of affording off'spring, which 
had been proved by anything like satisfactory 
evidence to have sprung from two originally 
distinct species; and I must therefore con- 
tinue to believe that no species capable of 
propagating offspring, either of plant or 
animal, now exists which did not come as 
such immediately from the hand of the 
Creator." 
After all that has been said, we are led to 
the conclusion that plants sport in nature as 
well as when aided by art, and that thousands 
of the so-called species are nothing but sports, 
which, fertilized again, give rise to new com- 
binations of form and colour ; for however 
much things may be diversified in our British 
gardens by crossing and the skill of the florist, 
the smallest difference in imported varieties is 
sufllcient to obtain for every poor plant the 
honour of being set down for a species. 
On the same subject, in a communication 
many years since made to the Horticultural 
Society, and published in the Transactions of 
the Society, the late Dr. Herbert has made 
some very apposite remarks : — 
" Many plants," he says, " which botanists 
have considered distinct, are certainly not so ; 
as, for instance, Jxia (or Tritonia) crocata, 
of which seminal varieties have been erro- 
neously ntimeA I. squalida, I.miniata, I.fene- 
