27 SEPTEMBER 1940, Page 11

A Prodigy A botanical prodigy, discussed in the latest number

of the little green quarterly, the Countryman, is represented by that popular berry the Logan. A few years ago I heard one of our experts in botanical science deny scornfully the common belief that the plant was a cross between the blackberry and the raspberry. He founded his disbelief on the undoubted fact that the seeds bred true ; and it has been a sort of axiom that when two different species are crossed, the issue is mulish or impure. It has now been proved that the logan was secured by crossing raspberry and blackberry ; but that the usual law of heredity is not followed in this cross. The inwardness of this strange exception has been penetrated, but needs explanation too technical for the general public and this exponent. It is enough that a new species, so to call it, has been secured in a most un-Darwinian fashion. A few other examples have been discovered among garden plants.