intermediate tint. Hence it might have been thought that both varieties must
have a stronger elective affinity for the pollen of their own variety than for
that of the other; this elective affinity, I may add of each species for its
own pollen (Kolreuter 'Dritte Forts.' s. 39 and Gartner 'Bastarderz.' passim)
being a perfectly well-ascertained power. But the force of the foregoing facts
is much lessened by Gartner's numerous experiments, for, differently from
Kolreuter, he never once got ('Bastarderz.' s. 307) an intermediate tint when
he crossed the yellow and white flowered varieties of Verbascum. So that the
fact of the white and yellow varieties keeping true to their colour by seed
does not prove that they were not mutually fertilised by the pollen carried by
insects from one to the other.)

This remarkable fact of the sexual affinity of similarly-coloured varieties,
as observed by Gartner and Mr. Scott, may not be of very rare occurrence; for
the subject has not been attended to by others. The following case is worth
giving, partly to show how difficult it is to avoid error. Dr. Herbert (16/19.
'Amaryllidaceae' 1837 page 366. Gartner has made a similar observation.) has
remarked that variously-coloured double varieties of the Hollyhock (Althea
rosea) may be raised with certainty by seed from plants growing close
together. I have been informed that nurserymen who raise seed for sale do not
separate their plants; accordingly I procured seed of eighteen named
varieties; of these, eleven varieties produced sixty-two plants all perfectly
true to their kind; and seven produced forty-nine plants, half of which were
true and half false. Mr. Masters of Canterbury has given me a more striking
case; he saved seed from a great bed of twenty-four named varieties planted in
closely adjoining rows, and each variety reproduced itself truly with only
sometimes a shade of difference in tint. Now in the hollyhock the pollen,
which is abundant, is matured and nearly all shed before the stigma of the
same flower is ready to receive it (16/20. Kolreuter first observed this fact,
'Mem. de l'Acad. de St. Petersburg' volume 3 page 127. See also C.K. Sprengel