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Hybrids 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869
The hybrids raised 1872

can 1859 1860 1861 1866
as in the genus Verbascum, can 1869 1872

when 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869
in degree when 1872

with the pollen of
the
either
pure
parents,
parent,
a single fertile seed: but in some of these cases a first trace of fertility may be detected, by the pollen of one of the pure parent-species causing the flower of the hybrid to wither earlier than it otherwise would have done; and the early withering of the flower is well known to be a sign of incipient
fertilization.
fertilisation.
From this extreme degree of sterility we have self-fertilised hybrids producing a greater and greater number of seeds up to perfect fertility.
Hybrids from two species which are very difficult to cross, and which rarely produce any offspring, are generally very sterile; but the parallelism between the difficulty of making a first cross, and the sterility of the hybrids thus
produced—two
produced—
two
two
classes of facts which are generally confounded
together—is
together—
is
is
by no means strict. There are many cases, in which two pure
species,
species
can be united with unusual facility, and produce numerous hybrid-offspring, yet these hybrids are remarkably sterile. On the other hand, there are species which can be crossed very rarely, or with extreme difficulty, but the hybrids, when at last produced, are very fertile. Even within the limits of the same genus, for instance in Dianthus, these two opposite cases occur.
The fertility, both of first crosses and of hybrids, is more easily affected by unfavourable conditions, than is
that
the fertility
of pure species. But the
fertility
degree
of
fer- tility
first crosses
fertility
is likewise innately variable; for it is not always the same when the same two species are crossed under the same
circumstances;
circumstances,
it
but
depends in part upon the constitution of the individuals which happen to have been chosen for the experiment. So it is with hybrids, for their degree of fertility is often found to differ greatly in the several individuals raised from seed out of the same capsule and exposed to
exactly
exactly
the same conditions.