348 
ON CROSSES AND 
till a more inclement season cut them off, but not that by 
any process of his they had become hardier ; the word accli- 
mating seems, therefore, to have been misapplied in his 
paper in the Transactions of the Horticultural Society. For 
the purpose of obtaining a large or a brilliant corolla, it will 
be probably found in the long run best to use the pollen of 
the species which excels in those points, because the corolla, 
in truth, belongs to the male portion of the flower, the an- 
thers being usually either borne upon it, or in some manner 
connected with it by a membrane ; but upon the whole an 
intermediate appearance may be generally expected, but 
with a great disposition to sport, especially in the seminal 
produce of the fertile crosses, as in plants which are apt to 
break into cultivated varieties. 
Before I proceed to consider the various cross-bred pro- 
ductions of late introduction, which at present embellish our 
collections, I will enter into a short detail of the reports 
which I have seen of experiments on this subject, made on 
the Continent, together with my view of the opinions which 
have been advanced in them, and in a little work by Professor 
Rennie, the matter of which is chiefly extracted from the 
writings of Mons. De Candolle. Kolreuter’s experiments* 
are detailed in the transactions of the Petersburg Acad, in 
1777, and the five or six following years. I do not find any 
further reports of experiments made in Germany, previous to 
that of Gaertner, concerning the observations he had made 
in 1825, subsequent to the publication of those of the Presi- 
dent of the Horticultural Society of London, and of myself, in 
its Transactions. He gave an account of the number of im- 
pregnations he attempted to effect, the particular subjects of 
his several experiments, and the failure or success of each. 
I cannot learn that he has since published any report of the 
germination of the seeds which he had obtained by those 
experiments, and no later statement was known to Mons. l)e 
* Relating to Lychnis and cucubalus, N. C. ac. Petr. t. 20. p. 431 — 448. 
Hybrid digitales Act. Ac. Petr. 1777. Do. Journ. de physique t. 21. p. 285 — 
299. Other hybrid digitales, Act. Ac. Petr. 1778. Continuation of experi- 
ments on hybrid foxgloves, J. de phys. t. 21. 209 — 306. Hybrid lobelia, Act 
Ac. Petr. 1777. — J. de phys. t. 23. 100 — 105. Hybrid lycia, Act. Ac. Petr. 
1778. Verbasca, 1781. Daturse, 1781. Malvaceous plants, 1782. Flaxes, 
Nov. Act. A. P. t. 1. 339 — 346. Pinks, ib. t. 3. 177 — 284. There may 
perhaps be some other reports by Kolreuter, of which I may have neglected to 
make a memorandum. I believe one concerning Nicotiana. 
