37 i 
ON CROSSES AND 
dant crop from two plants of curvifolia by the pollen of the 
mule, no other Nerine having been permitted to develope its 
anthers on the premises. Here, then, is a feature which had 
been overlooked, which seems, nevertheless, to have a pow- 
erful influence over the fertility of the offspring. The seed- 
ing of this mule is fatal to Salisbury’s genus Loxanthus, if 
any doubt could have remained after the production of the 
former intermixture. In the tubular African heaths the 
pollen remains confined, unless the anthers are touched by 
something inserted, as the point of a pin or the proboscis of 
an insect, when they spring asunder and discharge it. This 
genus, therefore, affords greater facility of intermixing, and 
it is probable that some of the native species, which are said 
to be quite local, have been produced by accidental intermix- 
ture of two other kinds. There is a natural species of Goodia, 
quite permanent by seed, which I had many years ago 
named intermedia, but which appears in Sweet’s Hortus 
Britannicus under the name subpubescens, which is so 
exactly intermediate between lotifolia and pubescens in all 
points, that it can scarcely be doubted that it might be pro- 
duced by crossing those two species. Amongst other crosses 
of Ericae, I obtained at Mitcbam many plants from two very 
dissimilar, namely, from Jasminiflora by vestita coccinea, 
which had the foliage slender and near an inch long. The 
late Mr. Salisbury had conceived that those two species, 
being; distinguished by a shorter and a longer and more 
pointed pod, were referable to two distinct genera to which 
he had accordingly assigned names, and he told me that I 
should fail in any attempt to cross them ; which was answered 
by shewing him the seedlings then several inches high. 
They were all lost on, or soon after, removing to Spofforth 
before they had flowered, though one of them was above a 
foot high. The disposition to sterility which lias been stated 
to exist especially in the offspring of parents of different con- 
stitutions, offers a great impediment to the unlimited use of 
crossing in the fruit-garden, but it is certain that great ad- 
vantage may be derived by the cultivator, who will strive to 
bring together the various good qualities of the sorts between 
which no such obstacle exists ; and the complete fertility of 
the fruit-bearing Cerei makes it very uncertain where such 
obstacles will be found to interfere, before the experiment is 
made. 1 have already mentioned that Crinum scabro-capense, 
though the pollen of different species was applied to it had 
