It is also a remarkable fact that hybrids raised
from reciprocal crosses, though of course compounded of the very same two
species, the one species having first been used as the father and then as
the mother, though they rarely differ in external characters, yet generally
differ in fertility in a small, and occasionally in a high degree.
Several other singular rules could be given from Gartner: for instance,
some species have a remarkable power of crossing with other species; other
species of the same genus have a remarkable power of impressing their
likeness on their hybrid offspring; but these two powers do not at all
necessarily go together. There are certain hybrids which, instead of
having, as is usual, an intermediate character between their two parents,
always closely resemble one of them; and such hybrids, though externally so
like one of their pure parent-species, are with rare exceptions extremely
sterile. So again among hybrids which are usually intermediate in
structure between their parents, exceptional and abnormal individuals
sometimes are born, which closely resemble one of their pure parents; and
these hybrids are almost always utterly sterile, even when the other
hybrids raised from seed from the same capsule have a considerable degree
of fertility. These facts show how completely the fertility of a hybrid
may be independent of its external resemblance to either pure parent.
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