J. Stockton-Hough 'American Naturalist' January 1874 page 29.) With other plants it has occasionally been observed that the crossed offspring showed the influence of two kinds of pollen, but in this case the two kinds affected the mother-plant.
Mr. Sabine states (11/140. 'Transact. Hort. Soc.' volume 5 page 69.) that he has seen the form of the nearly globular seed-capsule of Amaryllis vittata altered by the application of the pollen of another species, of which the capsule has gibbous angles. With an allied genus, a well-known botanist, Maximowicz, has described in detail the striking results of reciprocally fertilising Lilium bulbiferum and davuricum with each other's pollen. Each species produced fruit not like its own, but almost identical with that of the pollen-bearing species; but from an accident only the fruit of the latter species was carefully examined; the seeds were intermediate in the development of their wings. (11/141. 'Bull. de l'Acad. Imp. de St. Petersburg' tome 17 page 275, 1872. The author gives references to those cases in the So1anaceae of fruit affected by foreign pollen, but as it does not appear that the mother-plant was artificially fertilised, I have not entered into details.)
Fritz Muller fertilised Cattleya leopoldi with pollen of Epidendron cinnabarinum; and the capsules contained very few seeds; but these presented a most wonderful appearance, which, from the description given, two botanists, Hildebrand and Maximowicz, attribute to the direct action of the pollen of the Epidendron. (11/142. 'Bot. Zeitung' September 1868 page 631. For Maximowicz's judgment see the paper last referred to.)
Mr. J. Anderson Henry (11/143. 'Journal of Horticulture' January 20, 1863 page 46.) crossed Rhododendron dalhousiae with the pollen of R. nuttallii, which is one of the largest-flowered and noblest species of the genus. The largest pod produced by the former species, when fertilised with its own pollen, measured 1 2/8 inch in length and 1 1/2 in girth; whilst three of the pods which had been fertilised by pollen of R. nuttallii measured 1 5/8 inch in length and no less than 2 inches in girth. Here the effect of the foreign pollen was apparently confined to increasing the size of the ovarium; but we must be cautious in assuming, as the following case shows, that size had been transferred from the male parent to the capsule of the female plant. Mr. Henry fertilised Arabis blepharophylla with pollen of A. soyeri, and the pods thus produced, of which he was so kind as to send me detailed measurements and sketches, were much larger in all their dimensions than those naturally produced by either the male or female parent-species. In a future chapter we shall see that the organs of vegetation in hybrid plants, independently of the character of either parent, are sometimes developed to a monstrous size; and the increased size of the pods in the foregoing cases may be an analogous fact. On the other hand, M. de Saporta informs me that an isolated female plant of Pistacia vera is very apt to be fertilised by the pollen of neighbouring plants of P. terebinthus, and in this case the fruits are only half their proper size, which he attributes to the influence of the pollen of P. terebinthus.
No case of the direct action of the pollen of one variety on another is better authenticated or more remarkable than that of the common apple. The fruit here consists of the lower part of the calyx and of the upper part of the flower-peduncle (11/144. See on this head the high authority of Prof. Decaisne in a paper translated in 'Journ. Hort. Soc.' volume 1 new series 1866 page 48.) in a metamorphosed condition, so that the effect of the foreign pollen has extended even beyond the limits of the ovarium. Cases of apples thus affected were recorded by Bradley in the early part of the last century; and other cases are given in old volumes of the 'Philosophical Transactions' (11/145. Volume 43 1744-45 page 525 volume 45 1747-48 page 602.); in one of these a Russeting apple and an adjoining kind mutually affected each other's fruit; and in another case a smooth apple affected a rough-coated kind.