The seeds of each plant were collected and sown separately, those of the
nearest gave up to 5 or 6 hybrids from the seeds of one parent, while
those of the farthest gave only one purple-flowered plant for each
parent. Evidently the chance of the pollen being carried by bees is much
greater on short than on longer distances.
True hybrids between species may arise in quite the same way, and since
it is obviously impossible to attribute them to an innate tendency to
reversion, they afford an absolutely irrefutable proof of the assertion
that pollen is often brought by insects from one lot of plants to
another. In this way I obtained a hybrid between the common Jacob's
ladder and the allied species _Polemonium dissectum_. With a distance of
100 meters between them I had two hybrid seeds among a hundred of pure
ones. At a similar distance pollen was carried over from the wild
radish, _Raphanus Raphanistrum_, to the allied _Raphanus caudatus_, and
I observed the following year some very nice hybrids among my seedlings.
A hybrid-bean between _Phaseolus nanus_ and _P. multiflorus_, and some
hybrids between the yellow daisy, _Chrysanthemum segetum_ and the allied
_Chrysanthemum coronarium_ or ox-eye daisy which also arose
spontaneously in my garden between parents cultivated at recorded
distances, might further be noted.
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