34 HETEROSTYLED DIMORPHIC PLANTS. Chap. I. 



* 



spontaneously self-fertilised. They yielded altogether 

 only six capsules containing any seeds; and their 

 average number was only 7.8 per capsule. Some, 

 moreover, of these seeds were so small that they could 

 hardly have germinated. 



Herr W. Breitenbach informs me that he examined, 

 in two sites near the Lippe (a tributary of the Ehine), 

 894 flowers produced by 198 plants of this species; and 

 he found 467 of these flowers to be long-styled, 411 

 short-styled, and 16 equal-styled. I have heard of no 

 other instance with heterostyled plants of equal-styled 

 flowers appearing in a state of nature, though far from 

 rare with plants which have been long cultivated. It 

 is still more remarkable that in eighteen cases the 

 same plant produced both long-styled and short-styled, 

 or long-styled and equal-styled flowers; and in two 

 out of the eighteen cases, long-styled, short-styled, and 

 equal-styled flowers. The long-styled flowers greatly 

 preponderated on these eighteen plants, — 61 consisting 

 of this form, 15 of equal-styled, and 9 of the short- 

 styled form. 





Primula vulgaris (var. acaulis, Linn.), 



The Primrose of English Writers. 



Mr. J. Scott examined 100 plants growing near 

 Edinburgh, and found 44 to be long-styled, and 56 

 short-styled; and I took by chance 79 plants in Kent, 

 of which 39 were long-styled and 40 short-styled; so 

 that the two lots together consisted of 83 long-styled 

 and 96 short-styled plants. In the long-styled form 

 the pistil is to that of the short-styled in length, from 

 an average of five measurements, as 100 to 51. The 

 stigma in the long-styled form is conspicuously more 

 globose and much more papillose than in the short- 



