How to study wild flowers / by George Henslow.

  • George Henslow
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: How to study wild flowers / by George Henslow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the}'^ tend to become similarly fleshy. Again, mari- time plants may lose this fleshiness when grown inland : so many plants have a ' maritime variety' or ' species ' according to the predilection of the botanist who may describe them ^. Hybkidization.—There is yet another som-ce or cause of variety both in nature and especially among our garden plants ; and this is obtained by inter- crossing different species of the same genus. Thus e. g. when the originals of our garden calceolarias were fii-st brought from South America, they consisted of two or three distinct wild species with very small red and yellow flowers ; but by pollinating a red one with the pollen of a yellow flower, or vice versa, hybrid seedlings were produced which bore variously spotted, streaked or blotched flowers ; and by cultivat- ing them in a rich soil, the flowers gradually became larger and larger, till now a flower of a prize calceolaria is about twelve times the size of that of the original G. arachnoides, which was introduced about 1835. Many of our garden plants contain two, three, or more species in combination, for florists have again and again crossed their hybrids with other species, for they find that by so doing they can greatly increase the number of varieties, and improve their size and beauty. We thus find that there are two methods at oui' disposal for improving our cultivated plants : that if plants be grown in a variety of soils, they, may pro- duce variations in colour, &c., without any crossing at all, but that by hybridizing and again crossing the offspring, a similar if not a still greater variety ma}' be obtained, as may be seen in begonias, roses, rhodo- dendrons, fuchsias, &c., tlie majorit}^ of which ma}' be called compound hybrids. Now. in pursuing these two methods, the florist has ' Should the reader desire further iiiformatiou on the subject of self-adaptation in plants, he is referred to the author's two works, The Origin of Floral Structures, vol. 64, and The Origin of Plant Structures, vol. 77, in the International Scientific Series.
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