Page - 303 - in The Origin of Species

DEGREES OF STERILITY 303 The practical experiments of horticulturists, though not made with scientific precision, deserve some notice. It is notorious in how complicated a manner the species of Pelar- gonium, Fuchsia, Calceolaria, Petunia, Rhododendron, &c., have been crossed, yet many of these hybrids seed freely. For instance, Herbert asserts that a hybrid from Calceolaria integrifolia and plantaginea, species most widely dissimilar in general habit, "reproduces itself as perfectly as if it had been a natural species from the mountains of Chili." I have taken some pains to ascertain the degree of fertility of some of the complex crosses of Rhododendrons, and I am assured that many of them are perfectly fertile. Mr. C. Noble, for instance, informs me that he raises stocks for grafting from a hybrid between Rhod. ponticum and catawbiense, and that this hybrid "seeds as freely as it is possible to imagine." Had hybrids, when fairly treated, always gone on decreasing in fertility in each successive generation, as Gartner believed to be the case, the fact would have been notorious to nursery- men. Horticulturists raise large beds of the same hybrid, and such alone are fairly treated, for by insect-agency the several individuals are allowed to cross freely with each other, and the injurious influence of close interbreeding is thus pre- vented. Any one may readily convince himself of the effici- ency of insect-agency by examining the flowers of the more sterile kinds of hybrid Rhododendrons, which produce no pollen, for he will find on their stigmas plenty of pollen brought from other flowers. In regard to animals, much fewer experiments have been carefully tried than with plants. If our systematic arrange- ments can be trusted, that is, if the genera of animals are as distinct from each other as are the genera of plants, then we may infer that animals more widely distinct in the scale of nature can be crossed more easily than in the case of plants ; but the hybrids themselves are, I think, more sterile. It should, however, be borne in mind that, owing to few animals breeding freely under confinement, few experiments have been fairly tried : for instance, the canary-bird has been crossed with nine distinct species of finches, but, as not one of these breeds freely in confinement, we have no right to expect that the first crosses between them and the canary,