He experimentised on some of the
very same species as did Gartner. The difference in their results may,
I think, be in part accounted for by Herbert's great horticultural
skill, and by his having hothouses at his command. Of his many
important statements I will here give only a single one as an example,
namely, that "every ovule in a pod of Crinum capense fertilised by C.
revolutum produced a plant, which (he says) I never saw to occur in a
case of its natural fecundation." So that we here have perfect, or
even more than commonly perfect, fertility in a first cross between
two distinct species.
This case of the Crinum leads me to refer to a most singular fact,
namely, that there are individual plants, as with certain species of
Lobelia, and with all the species of the genus Hippeastrum, which can
be far more easily fertilised by the pollen of another and distinct
species, than by their own pollen. For these plants have been found to
yield seed to the pollen of a distinct species, though quite sterile
with their own pollen, notwithstanding that their own pollen was found
to be perfectly good, for it fertilised distinct species. So that
certain individual plants and all the individuals of certain species
can actually be hybridised much more readily than they can be
self-fertilised! For instance, a bulb of Hippeastrum aulicum produced
four flowers; three were fertilised by Herbert with their own pollen,
and the fourth was subsequently fertilised by the pollen of a compound
hybrid descended from three other and distinct species: the result was
that "the ovaries of the three first flowers soon ceased to grow, and
after a few days perished entirely, whereas the pod impregnated by the
pollen of the hybrid made vigorous growth and rapid progress to
maturity, and bore good seed, which vegetated freely.
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