100 HETEROSTYLED DIMORPHIC PLANTS. Chap. III. 



evince some slight capacity for fertilisation with their 

 own-form pollen, these three capsules may have been 

 the product of self-fertilisation. 



Besides the three species now described, the yellow- 

 flowered L. corymbiferum is certainly heterostyled, 

 as is, according to Planchon,* L. salsoloides. This 

 botanist is the only one who seems to have inferred 

 that heterostylism might have some important func- 

 tional bearing. Dr. Alefeld, who has made a special 

 study of the genus, saysf that about half of the sixty- 

 five species known to him are heterostyled. This is 

 the case with L. trigynum, which differs so much from 

 the other species that it has been formed by him into 

 a distinct genus. J According to the same author, none 

 of the species which inhabit America and the Cape of 

 Good Hope are heterostyled. 



I have examined only three homostyled species, 

 namely, L. usitatissimum , an gusti folium, and catharti- 

 cum. I raised 111 plants of a variety of the first-named 

 species, and these, when protected under a net, all 

 produced plenty of seed. The flowers, according to 

 H. Muller,§ are frequented by bees and moths. With 

 respect to L. catharticum , the same author shows that 

 the flowers are so constructed that they can freely 

 fertilise themselves; but if visited by insects they 

 might be cross-fertilised. He has, however, only once 

 seen the flowers thus visited during the day ; but it may 

 be suspected that they are frequented during the night 

 by small moths for the sake of the ^\e minute drops 



* Hooker's ' London Journal of 

 Botany/ 1848, vol. vii. p. 174. 



t ' Bot. Zeitung, ' Sept. 18, 1863, 

 p 281. 



t It is not improbable that the 

 allied genus, Hugonia, is hetero- 

 styled, for one species is said by 

 Planchon (Hooker's ' London 



Journal of Botany,' 1848, vol. vii. 

 p. 525) to be provided with 

 'staminibus exsertis;" another 

 with " stylis staminibus longiori- 

 bus," and another has stamina 5, 

 majora, stylos longe superantia." 

 § 'Die Befruchtung der Blu- 

 men,' &c, p. 168. 





