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(Hybridism) Contabescence & Sterility

In vegetable Kingdom we meet with same class of facts. Sterility the bane of horticulture.— Plenty of cases of exotics as sterile as hybrids.

Male sex goes first, apparently, & so in Hybrids.

All cases of sterility cannot be accounted for.

Contabescence goes by classes so in Liliaceæ.— ⸮variable like sterility of Hybrids.—

(a) Contabescence in wild Europæan plants, & hereditary & not altered by treatment. (Beiträge Exotics being so often contabescent shows it must be connected with conditions: it is very important & like Hybrid, being contabescent for life & not altered by conditions.

Double flowers, male side goes first — Dark flowers common in fruit.— with excess of food, & potentiality of producing many stamens & petals— Whether fruit enlargement of can be so explained. (If the bane, also advantage)

Whether again Phyllomania— can be so explained. When wheat plant is scarcer & profusely watered will not flower. This something different, here the procreative individual not favoured. So in India, where they mutilate Europæan vegetable to make them fruit.

Singular case of parallelism to kind of sterility Hybrids in Gærtner p 357-360

Alpine plants in lowlands

Both sexes of a plant equally dispersed, yet not both equally affected, possibly like the unequal reciprocity of hybrids???

Are there not cases of Hybrids sterile upon either one or other side?

Gærtner Bastard p. 65 p. 212 other genera case of Passiflora sterile on female side?

─ p. 230. The Doubling tendency, communicated by pollen or female side &c. hereditary. So pure contabescence might become hereditary, & yet its origin be due to external conditions.

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(Contabescence & Sterility of Plants)

(a) Contabescence said to originate during earliest period of life. I wonder whether this is case with Sumach; Persian Lilac. &c Did were these shrubs over fr imported by imported by seeds or by cuttings brought over; Probably so. If so the contabescence must have arisen come on during life.— & not during during embryonic life, ie maturation of embryo— In animals contabescence certainly comes on during mature life as in Elephant, foxes, caught in this country &c.—

From action of causes on Parents

Gærtner p 212 cases of plant sterile on female side

─p 333 p. 356} important cases of connected plant with pollen apparently good perhaps & of plant certainly sterile on female side & at least in that degree that own pollen wd not [illeg] especially exotics:-

VC p 340 quote cases to show animal Hybrid fail more on male than female side.

p. 363 In doubling male flowers first affected.

p. 369 contabescence female sterility hereditary in Dianthus Japonicus (Monstrosity)

[do] [do] parallelism in number of flowers sometimes produced in Hybrides & in sterile pure species.

p. 377 379 on sterility of Liliaceæ with good pollen & of Oxalis.

p. 378 Male organs fail oftener than female &c

p 379 very common in Exotic

p 395 in Hybrids no art or culture will improve organs─

p 564 Reference to Jäger on double flowers

p 565 Hybrids more more inclined to double than pure species.

p 567 maximal growth necessary for doubling.─ wild flowers sometimes double near Hot-spring & other cases. My case of Gartiana in Gardeners Chronicle

─ p. 569 female organs often spared from doubling.

p 639 Exotic genera, with good pollen & ovule but which will not seed, without aid, (surely this is owing to absence of insects or birds?) Mem. Orpheus in Chile with head all yellow.

p 658 cause of sterility of Lobelia (owing to stigma not protruding)

Gærtner's Beitrage p. 117 much about Contabescence most important; & some sterility of female organs

do 127 p 251 on Sensitiveness of female organs to injury. & [illeg] ─ most observed in exotics; some roots not at bottom of Pots with exception of Borussia & Digitalis

do p 333 on relation of food to sterility, some more fertile, some less.

p 365 difficulty of explaining sterility of plant impregnated. ─applic to artificial impreg.

do p 440 on abortion of seeds

p 560, 564 on sterility of common Lilac

on sterility rather due to bad pollen, than to female organs.─

Kölreuter my abstract M.S. p. 9 on Lobelia, protrusion of stigma

─ do p. 15 Back of Page as Hybrid flowers so copiously & yet quite sterile: shows that not flowering from too much manure or warmth or water different from true sterility of reproductive organs.