Journal' volume 9 page 163; Godron 'De l'Espece' tome 2 page 92.) That there must be at least two parent species we may infer from the sterility of twenty hybrids raised by Mr. Knight from the morello fertilised by pollen of the Elton cherry; for these hybrids produced in all only five cherries, and one alone of these contained a seed. (10/79. 'Transact. Hort. Soc.' volume 5 1824 page 295.) Mr. Thompson (10/80. Ibid second series volume 1 1835 page 248.) has classified the varieties in an apparently natural method in two main groups by characters taken from the flowers, fruit, and leaves; but some varieties which stand widely separate in this classification are quite fertile when crossed; thus Knight's Early Black cherries are the product of a cross between two such kinds.
Mr. Knight states that seedling cherries are more variable than those of any other fruit-tree. (10/81. ) In the Catalogue of the Horticultural Society for 1842 eighty varieties are enumerated. Some varieties present singular characters: thus, the flower of the Cluster cherry includes as many as twelve pistils, of which the majority abort; and they are said generally to produce from two to five or six cherries aggregated together and borne on a single peduncle. In the Ratafia cherry several flower- peduncles arise from a common peduncle, upwards of an inch in length. The fruit of Gascoigne's Heart has its apex produced into a globule or drop; that of the white Hungarian Gean has almost transparent flesh. The Flemish cherry is "a very odd-looking fruit," much flattened at the summit and base, with the latter deeply furrowed, and borne on a stout, very short footstalk. In the Kentish cherry the stone adheres so firmly to the footstalk, that it could be drawn out of the flesh; and this renders the fruit well fitted for drying. The Tobacco-leaved cherry, according to Sageret and Thompson, produces gigantic leaves, more than a foot and sometimes even eighteen inches in length, and half a foot in breadth. The weeping cherry, on the other hand, is valuable only as an ornament, and, according to Downing, is "a charming little tree, with slender, weeping branches, clothed with small, almost myrtle-like foliage." There is also a peach-leaved variety.
Sageret describes a remarkable variety, LE GRIOTTIER DE LA TOUSSAINT, which bears at the same time, even as late as September, flowers and fruit of all degrees of maturity. The fruit, which is of inferior quality, is borne on long, very thin footstalks. But the extraordinary statement is made that all the leaf-bearing shoots spring from old flower-buds. Lastly, there is an important physiological distinction between those kinds of cherries which bear fruit on young or on old wood; but Sageret positively asserts that a Bigarreau in his garden bore fruit on wood of both ages. (10/82. These several statements are taken from the four following works, which may, I believe, be trusted: Thompson in 'Hort. Transact.' see above; Sageret 'Pomologie Phys.' 1830 pages 358, 364, 367, 379; 'Catalogue of the Fruit in the Garden of Hort. Soc.' 1842 pages 57, 60; Downing 'The Fruits of America' 1845 pages 189, 195, 200.)
APPLE (Pyrus malus).
The one source of doubt felt by botanists with respect to the parentage of the apple is whether, besides P. malus, two or three other closely allied wild forms, namely, P. acerba and praecox or paradisiaca, do not deserve to be ranked as distinct species. The P. praecox is supposed by some authors (10/83. Mr. Lowe states in his 'Flora of Madeira' quoted in 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1862 page 215 that the P. malus, with its nearly sessile fruit, ranges farther south than the long-stalked P. acerba, which is entirely absent in Madeira, the Canaries, and apparently in Portugal. This fact supports the belief that these two forms deserve to be called species. But the characters separating them are of slight importance, and of a kind known to vary in other cultivated fruit-trees.) to be the parent of the dwarf paradise stock, which, owing to the fibrous roots not penetrating deeply into the ground, is so largely used for grafting; but the paradise stocks, it is asserted (10/84.