May 5, 1900. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
563 
Special Cheap Offer 
OF 
GLADIOLI, 
Fop present Planting. 
BARR’S LARGE - FLOWERED 
GLADIOLUS GANDAVEIMSIS- 
having bold spikes of large handsome 
flowers in August and September. 
3 each of 20 choice named varieties, 15/-. 
3 „ 12 ,, ,, 9/-. 
1 „ 12 „ ,, 3/6. 
Barr’s Choicest Strain in 
Mixture. —Flowers of finest quality and 
in a great variety of brilliant colours. 
Per 100, 12/-. Per dozen, 1/8. 
GLADIOLUS BRENCHLEYEN- 
SIS —producing large handsome ver¬ 
milion-scarlet flowers in August, a little 
earlier than the Gandavensis varieties. 
Large bulbs, per 100, 5/-; per doz., 10d. 
NEW HYBRID BUTTERFLY 
GLADIOLI. —A handsome race of 
Gladioli, distinct in form and markings from 
the Gandavensis varieties ; the colours are 
beautiful, and the large blotches on the 
lower petals strikingly attractive, flowering 
July to August. 
3 each of 12 beautiful varieties, 12/-. 
f « 12 ,, ,, 5/-. 
Bulbs in fine condition Early orders 
solicited. 
Prepaid Order Sent Carriage Free. 
BARR & SONS, 
12&13, KING ST., COVENT GARDEN. LONDON. 
CHEALSfr 
V/0HLD-WIDE R^EWOWN- STRIKING flOVELTIES 
C^fJEW CATALOGUE POST FREE3^ 
(J. CJualrdcri*, 
Vegetable & Flower _ 
0* ° 
AND A J 
Sundries, 
& ' 
SEED POTATOS, 
Garden Tools 
OF 
Best 
Qualities 
at most 
Moderate Prices 
Delivered Free 
by Rail or Parcel Post. 
Illustrated 
Descriptive Catalogue , No. jo8, 
Post Free on application. 
ORCHIDS. 
Clean Healthy Plants at Low Prices. 
ilwayt worth a visit 0/inspection. Kindly send for Catalogue , 
J1 
EMc Mnrserlds, CHELTEKHAM. 
“ Gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest 
refreshment to the spirit of man "— Bacon. 
1|Md 
Edited by J. FRASER. F.L.S. 
SATURDAY , MAY 5th, 1900. 
NEXT WEEK’S ENGAGEMENTS. 
Tuesday, May Sth,—R.H.S. Meeting in Drill Hall, James 
Street, Westminster; Royal Gardeners’ Orphan Fund 
(Annual Dinner at Cafe Monico). 
JDeport of the Hybrid Conference.— 
It is now nearly nine months since the 
Conference on Hybridisation was held at 
Chiswick, the details of which now appear 
in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural 
Society, Vol. XXIV. The holding of that 
conference was hailed by not a few as likely 
to unravel many problems with which 
botanists, teachers, cultivators, and studious 
amateurs, are often beset. Now when the 
information is printed and circulated, they 
find that a good deal yet remains to be done 
in a field that seems practically inexhausti¬ 
ble. We had no hopes that any single con¬ 
ference, however exhaustive, could settle 
the vast problems that are continually crop¬ 
ping up in this fertile field. The conference 
has been the means of getting together a 
vast amount of the raw material out of 
which facts and truths will have to be 
gleaned for the building up of a science of 
the subject, and that is about all that could 
be expected. As a teacher expressed the 
matter the other day, the material has to 
be “boiled down” with the object of 
extracting the information and the reliable 
data for use in the class-room. Meanwhile 
workers are busy in various parts of the 
country, either as a duty, or a hobby ; and 
it is to be hoped that those who are labour- 1 
ing amongst garden plants at least will 
make a careful record of their experiments, 
and the incontestable facts which they have 
been able to extract from the secrets of 
Nature. Many horticulturists are more 
concerned and delighted with their crown¬ 
ing achievements and successes, than they 
are incorrectly recording the means they 
employed which finally resulted in triumph. 
Horticulturists very often do come into this 
category, though it is to be hoped that a 
larger number of them will yet take to the 
recording of their experiments with the 
results of the same. 
We have heard much of the antipathy of 
the botanist to the work of the hybridist; 
but happily that barrier is being broken 
down, particularly as botanists begin to 
recognise that hybrids occur in a state of 
Nature, and often cause a deal of trouble, 
not to say inconvenience, to thesystematist. 
There are some botanists, however, who 
still decline to admit the truth of hybridisa¬ 
tion in certain genera at least, where the 
more enthusiastic profess to see undoubted 
evidence of the intermixture of two species. 
Where the two species are closely allied 
and similar in the details of many of their 
parts it is often very difficult to be positive 
that a variation in a plant may be due to 
hybridisation. The results of the latter 
operation are not always alike in the pro¬ 
geny of two parents, some of the seedlings 
tending towards one parent, and some to¬ 
wards the other, so that it becomes abso¬ 
lutely impossible as far as we can see to 
affirm that a certain plant is a hybrid or 
merely a variation from the more typical 
form of a species. Most botanists, we be¬ 
lieve, are still agreed that species are 
capable of variation without having been 
crossed with any other species. In such 
cases the origin of many variations must 
remain an unknown quantity. There¬ 
fore, a conscientious worker and careful 
recorder is justly entitled to his sceptism, 
until reliable proof is forthcoming. This 
might often bs obtained by direct experi¬ 
ment. The saying that “ there lives more 
faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in 
all the creeds,” would seem to be applicable 
here. 
Mr. R. Allen Rolfe, A.L.S., in his article 
on “ Hybridisation Viewed from the Stand¬ 
point of Systematic Botany” (p. 181), 
records the opinion of more than one good 
systematic botanist upon the twenty-seven 
supposed natural hybrids that have been 
discovered amongst the British Epilobiums. 
One botanist declares that “the makers of 
hybrids often go no further than the diag¬ 
nostic characters of systematists ” ; and it 
is to be feared this is often the case, for in¬ 
dividual variations in some species are 
sometimes so numerous and so great as 
almost to defy diagnosis within a reasonable 
limit of words ; and yet it is difficult to see 
that any hybridisation has been concerned 
in the matter. This might be due in cer¬ 
tain cases to secondary or even tertiary 
hybrids, for the infertile mule theory has 
long been exploded and abandoned by good 
observers. It has also been proved by 
many horticulturists by actual experiment. 
Why should not the same thing occur in 
Nature. These are problems not to be set¬ 
tled by arguments, oral or written, but by 
actual experiment. It is now beyond 
dispute that certain hybrid plants occurring 
in a wild state have been described as species. 
This raises the question whether a hybrid, 
if sufficiently fixed to reproduce itself true 
to name from seed, might not be regarded 
as a species. Some botanists actually 
speak of hybrids as species whether they 
regard them as of good standing or not. 
Others, however, take a serious view of 
the matter, and consider that hybrids may 
be or become sufficiently stable to be 
regarded as species or their equivalents, 
and that many existing wild plants have 
originated in this way. It is interesting to 
note that Mr. J. G. Baker, of Kew, a great 
authority on Roses,givesit ashisopmion that 
none of the crosses made by horticulturists 
amongst Roses have proved the origin of 
any wild hybrid, the reason being that the 
right species have not yet been crossed to¬ 
gether. 
In the year 1835 experiments were under¬ 
taken by Dean Herbert by crossing certain 
species of Narcissus to prove that even 
some of the undoubtedly wild ones have 
originated in a state of nature by hybrid¬ 
isation. By crossing a Daffodil with the 
pollen of N. poeticus he obtained forms 
that were practically identical with the 
existing forms known as N. incomparabilis. 
The Daffodil crossed with the Jonquil gave 
N. odorus. This has been verified in 
modern times by many experimenters work¬ 
ing independently either by way of a hobby 
or for augmenting and improving their 
garden collections. The Royal Horticul¬ 
tural Society is and will be doing good work 
in getting together all reliable information 
on the work of experimental hybridisation, 
so that scientific workers in the future may 
be able to diagnose and generalise on the 
subject for the benefit of mankind. 
