130 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGHST. 
[ September, 
expanded segments is set with minute hairs, 
which, when the divisions of the pistil are erect, 
lie close against its inner side, and, as the seg¬ 
ments open or curve back, stand out at right 
angles and form a kind of brush. The Pelar¬ 
gonium is thus, dependent on exterior sources 
for fertilisation, which is not tho case with 
many other kind of flowers. I think, therefore, 
the value of the present observations is in¬ 
creased by this property, though, of course, 
there is always a possibility of miscarriage in 
some details in every long investigation. 
When the hybridisation is completed, it is 
necessary, of course, to preserve a record of 
the operation, if only to secure variations in 
the act; and without a means of marking tho 
details, none of tho results which I am about 
to describe could have been obtained. When 
the number of subjects to be operated on is as 
large as I used, a system of registering the act 
became absolutely necessary. I devised, there¬ 
fore, the following plan for marking the floret 
operated on, so as to show me, when the seeds 
were fit to be gathered, what pollen had been 
employed for fertilisation. I describe my sys¬ 
tem, and which has been arrived at after several 
variations and developments during many 
years, for the benefit of those who may like to 
use it, as well as to show how far my experi¬ 
ments may be relied upon as giving correct 
results as to the parentage of my seedlings. 
Of course, in my catalogue every variety 
which I grew had its number, and by which 
any plant could be at once identified. What 
was required was something to mark the floret 
operated upon, and which would denote tho 
number of the pollen plant used. The origin¬ 
ality of my plan consists in being able to repre¬ 
sent any number from 1 to 300 or 400 by 
means of a material which could be readily tied 
around the pedicel of the floret. What I use 
is variously-coloured worsteds and silk thread. 
In my scheme, the worsted (Berlin wool) repre¬ 
sents the units, and sewing or purse-silk the 
tens, and the various colours of the spectrum 
with black and white give the several numerals, 
thus:— 
Black. White. Violet. Indigo. Blue. Green. Yellow. Orange. Bed. 
1 . 2 3 4 5 6 7 . 8 ...... 9 
Then, by using grey to represent 100, and 
brown 200, drab 300, 1 had as high a number 
as I ever required. 
As an example of the mode of using the 
above plan :—Suppose that I desired to cross 
Jean Sisley with Sir Charles Napier, using the 
pollen of the former on to the stigma of the 
latter. On taking pollen from Jean Sisley, the 
number of which was 38 in my catalogue, I 
should take a piece of violet silk to denote 30, 
and a piece of orange wool denoting 8, or 
together 38, and tie them around the pedicel of 
the pip operated upon ; this would, of course, 
remain until the seed was ripe. On gathering 
the seed, the mother-plant would be witness 
for itself, and the male parent would be 
known by the colours used. 
Each seed in my experiments was at once 
labelled on gathering, and placed in a small 
pill-box, and its numbers marked on the lid, 
thus 73 x 38, the former being that of Sir 
Charles Napier in that year’s catalogue. On 
sowing, each seed was sown singly in a thumb- 
pot, and a small glass label, written with a 
scratch diamond, inserted at the side. These 
labels are cheap, indelible, and indestructible, 
and I have found them very suitable for my 
purpose. 
Before proceeding, I may here say that for 
the purpose of taking the pollen, I prefer the 
use of velvet to the camel’s-hair brush, and 
always used the former. The velvet may be 
tied around the top of a stick, when it repre¬ 
sents somewhat the bumble bee. I prefer also 
black velvet, with which it is easy to see what 
pollen one has collected, and it is very easy, 
after each operation, to cleanse the velvet by 
passing it three or four times across the coat 
sleeve. I consider that the camel’s hair-brush 
cannot be so readily cleaned, nor can it be 
ascertained whether it is cleansed, so that it 
would have been difficult to feel certain that 
only one kind of pollen had been used in any 
single operation. In many instances, it is 
better, perhaps, to use no instrument, but to 
apply the pistil itself, but this could not always 
be achieved, and it involves the destruction of 
the bloom and more time, and with the velvet 
no chance of admixture of pollen need happen. 
The seeds were sown in the autumn of the 
same year, 1877, and, as already said, they did 
not bloom, except in a very few instances, till 
the summer of 1879. 
For carrying on the present inquiry, each 
seedling on blooming, so soon as it arrived at 
its best, was placed between a plant of its male 
