On the whole, these plants appeared to take rather
more after V. lychnitis than V. thapsus. On the supposition that they were
hybrids, it is not an anomalous circumstance that they should all have produced
yellow flowers; for Gartner crossed white and yellow-flowered varieties of
Verbascum, and the offspring thus produced never bore flowers of an intermediate
tint, but either pure white or pure yellow flowers, generally of the latter
colour. (2/24. 'Bastardzeugung' page 307.)
My observations were made in the autumn; so that I was able to collect some
half-matured capsules from twenty of the thirty-three intermediate plants, and
likewise capsules of the pure V. lychnitis and thapsus growing in the same
field. All the latter were filled with perfect but immature seeds, whilst the
capsules of the twenty intermediate plants did not contain one single perfect
seed. These plants, consequently, were absolutely barren. From this fact,--from
the one plant which was transplanted into my garden yielding when artificially
fertilised with pollen from V. lychnitis and thapsus some seeds, though
extremely few in number,--from the circumstance of the two pure species growing
in the same field,--and from the intermediate character of the sterile plants,
there can be no doubt that they were hybrids. Judging from the position in which
they were chiefly found, I am inclined to believe they were descended from V.
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