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Every hybridizer knows how unfavourable exposure to wet is to the fertilisation of a flower, yet what a multitude of flowers have their anthers and stigmas fully exposed to the weather! but if an occasional cross be indispensable, the fullest freedom for the entrance of pollen from another individual will explain this state of exposure, more especially as the plant's own anthers and pistil generally stand so close together that self-fertilisation seems almost inevitable.
When the hybridizer causes by force a fruitful union betwixt two genera, he seems to triumph over a botanical law. But suppose the genera themselves are artificial, only links in a grand chain which Nature has forged slowly, patiently, with many a break and many a failure, in the course of ages?
On the belief that this is a law of nature, we can, I think, understand several large classes of facts, such as the following, which on any other view are inexplicable. Every hybridizer knows how unfavourable exposure to wet is to the fertilisation of a flower, yet what a multitude of flowers have their anthers and stigmas fully exposed to the weather!
Remark, in the first place, the low, unshaded range of houses devoted to hybridization, a contrast to those lofty structures, a hundred yards long or more, where plants merely flourish and bloom. Their span roofs one may touch with the hand, and their glass is always newly cleaned. The first and last demand of the hybridizer is light light eternally light.
It was eagerly welcomed by breeders of the day, among others the accomplished French hybridizer, Mons. Souchet, of Fontainebleu, who really laid the foundation of the modern Gandavensis strain, the basis of all that is best in the summer-blooming section. The predominating types of the finest Gandavensis varieties, however, retain few of the characteristics of psittacinus.
Every hybridizer knows how unfavourable exposure to wet is to the fertilisation of a flower, yet what a multitude of flowers have their anthers and stigmas fully exposed to the weather! but if an occasional cross be indispensable, the fullest freedom for the entrance of pollen from another individual will explain this state of exposure, more especially as the plant's own anthers and pistil generally stand so close together that self-fertilisation seems almost inevitable.
This species has the rare privilege of self-fertilization we may well exclaim, Why! why? and it eagerly avails itself thereof so soon as the flower begins to open. Thus, however watchful the hybridizer may be, hitherto he has found the pollen masses melted in hopeless confusion before he can secure them. One hybrid Epidendrum has been obtained Epi.
The reason is that they get abundance of food in captivity, and all things are made comfortable for them; whilst Nature, anxious to be rid of a form of plant no longer approved, starves and neglects them. The same argument enables us to understand why Cypripeds lend themselves so readily to the hybridizer.
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