The VEGETABLE SYSTEM. 
7 1 
this autumn, the Plant here reprefented ; and there feem good Seeds 
formed. 
If I had known fuch a Plant before, or if any author had defcribed 
fuch a one, it would not have appeared very wonderful to me, that it 
fhould appear a fecond year from fowing, though not the firft ; for a 
very little pradtice in gardening, will fhew how apt Seeds are to lie dor- 
mant a longer time than that : but as I know of no fuch Plant, and as 
it appeared only a fecond feafon ; and mod: of all, as it feems to me in its 
afpedt an unnatural Plant, I have fufpicions that it is a Mongrel or 
Mulifh Plant, produced between the flat Eryngio, and fome one of the 
Scabious’s. 
We knowthefe mixtures fometimes happen among Plants; perhaps 
they are more frequent than we are aware. In general, the Plants pro- 
duced thus are foon loft, becaufe their Seeds will not grow ; but this is 
not always the cafe. I have been told that the Dittany produced be- 
tween the Sypline and Cretan, produces Seeds which fometimes ve- 
getate ; and I can fpeak with certainty of a Plant between the Welch 
Veronica and the common kind, of which I have many Plants now 
raifed from Seed, and living. 
We are not now to learn that a Mulifh Plant may be produced be- 
tween two Plants of different Genera ; but as the mixture is lefs regular, 
perhaps it is a law of nature, that the Seeds of fuch fhall not grow : we 
fpeak much in the dark of thefe things ; for they want much, and have 
had yet very little obfervation ; but from what I have yet feen, I think 
it will be found that among Mulifh Plants, the Seeds of fuch as are pro- 
duced between two fpecies of the fame Genus, will fometimes, though 
but feldom, grow ; and that by degrees, the new offspring will lofe 
all that it had of likenefs to the female, and become the fame with the 
male Plant entirely : on the contrary, that fuch of the Mulifh Plants, 
as are produced from a male Plant of one Genus, and a Female of 
another truly diftindt, never produce Seeds that will vegetate, however 
fair they may look, and that by thefe means, when the individuals fo 
produced perifh, the new Plant is for that time loft. 
Upon 
