The celebrated Carl Vogt, in one of his public lectures, as president of the National Institute of Geneva, in 1869, said: "No one, in Europe at least, dares to affirm the independent and spontaneous creation of species." This means, for all those who have reflected about the origin of all living beings, that they are all Hybrids, and the consequence of natural and successful crossings. But nature, having eternity before and behind her, has been and is still slow in her proceedings; and as the human race, most likely, was not the first to appear on our little globe, and that also most probably its mental faculties were very slowly developed, it is not astonishing that we should know so little about the origin of all living beings, as well in the vegetable as in the animal kingdom. A new proof of the rectitude of Carl Vogt's assertion, has lately sprung up in the vegetable kingdom. A new Perpetual Hybrid has been created by Alphonse Aligatiere, of Lyons. He has crossed Dianthus plumarius (pink) by Dianthus Caryophyllus (Perpetual carnation), and had tried the artificial fecundation of both for five consecutive years without success.

Still he persevered, and in 1881 he obtained from 1,500 artificial fecundations, one single seed pod containing three seeds, one of which germinated and produced a Hybrid, which is a perpetual bloomer, and named it Mignardis, 1881 (Dianthus plumarius), and from it, by continued artificial fecundation, he has lately obtained ten varieties, all very different, and perpetual bloomers. He has thus created what is commonly called a species. These ten varieties are all, for amateurs, a splendid acquisition to replace the old pinks as border plants, having over these the advantage of being constantly in bloom, and also for bedding purposes, by their varieties of colors and growths. They must not only interest all those who love flowers, but also all those who reflect and study the contingencies of the laws of nature. Monplaisir, Lyons, March 29, 1884.