84 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
and therefore, though the operation were performed, it would be 
effectless. This is obvious; for if one flower were hybridized 
artificially by the pollen of a plant exactly similar no change of 
character could result from the operation. In the case of na¬ 
turally-grown plants, where there has been no hybridization, 
this is strictly and absolutely true; but plants which have 
been altered by hybridization are always apt to breed back to 
the variety which has naturally the greatest vigour, and whose 
characters predominate in the hybrid. Any one can verify the 
truth of this by actual observation , and this is one of the causes 
of the great varieties which we find among a group of roses, all 
of which have in one part of their parentage descended from a 
single plant, the name of which is applied generally to the group. 
If the hybridizing plant is less energetic than this one originat¬ 
ing plant, its characters predominate in the hybrids, and they 
are considered here varieties of it; but if the hybridizer is more 
energetic, they approach its character more nearly in proportion 
to its greater energy; and where this is the case, they are re¬ 
garded as varieties of it. Between the original parent plants 
there may thus be a considerable number of varieties; and at 
some point of the series, varieties will be found in which the 
characters of the two originals are so blended together that both 
of them are lost and the plants are considered as new ones. 
This is remarkably the case in the natural “ sporting of varieties,” 
as it is called; and when the resulting plant is what may be 
called a perfect hybrid, it is generally, if not always, more true 
to its character than if one of the original characters were pre¬ 
dominant. These principles ought to be well known and un¬ 
derstood by all cultivators who hybridize plants, and especially 
among autumnal roses, where names are given to groups, the 
characters of which gradually melt into each other, without any 
definite line of distinction, like the colours in the rainbow. The 
following are, in addition to the perpetual roses, noticed in our 
last, the leading groups of autumnal ones. 
1. Bourbon Roses. The parent plant from which this splen¬ 
did group originated, appears, as mentioned in our last, to have 
been a natural hybrid between two varieties growing in the Isle 
of Bourbon, but what these varieties were is not known. It was 
found by M. Perichon, a proprietor in that island, among a par¬ 
cel of seedlings which had grown up in his rose edges, and being 
