220 ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPRING OF Chap. V, 



Mr. Horwood raised from purchased seeds four plants, 

 which he remembered were certainly not long-styled, but 

 either short- or equal-styled, probably the latter. These 

 four plants were kept separate and allowed to fertilise 

 themselves; from their seed the seventeen plants in the 

 table were raised, all of which proved equal-styled. The 

 stamens stood low down in the corolla as in the long-styled 

 form; and the stigmas, which were globular and smooth, 

 were either completely surrounded by the anthers, or stood 

 close above them. My son William made drawings for 

 me by the aid of the camera, of the pollen of one of the 

 above equal-styled plants; and, in accordance with the 

 position of the stamens, the grains resembled in their 

 small size those of the long-styled form. He also examined 

 pollen from two equal-styled plants at Southampton; and 

 in both of them the grains differed extremely in size in 

 the same anthers, a large number being small and shriv- 

 elled, whilst many were fully as large as those of the short- 

 style form and rather more globular. It is probable that 

 the large size of these grains was due, not to their having 

 assumed the character of the short-styled form, but to mon- 

 strosity; for Max Wichura has observed pollen-grains of 

 monstrous size in certain hybrids. The vast number of the 

 small shrivelled grains in the above two cases explains the 

 fact that, though equal-styled plants are generally fertile 

 in a high degree, yet some of them yield few seeds. I may 

 add that my son compared, in 1875, the grains from two 

 white-flowered plants, in both of which the pistil projected 

 above the anthers, but neither were properly long-styled 

 or equal-styled; and in the one in which the stigma pro- 

 jected most, the grains were in diameter to those in the 

 other plant, in which the stigma projected less, as 100 to 

 88; whereas the difference between the grains from per- 

 fectly characterised long-styled and short-styled plants is 

 as 100 to 57. So that these two plants were in an inter- 

 mediate condition. To return to the 17 plants in the first 

 line of Table 31 : from the relative position of their stig- 

 mas and anthers, they could hardly fail to fertilise them- 

 selves : and accordingly four of them spontaneously yielded 

 no less than 180 capsules; of these Mr. Horwood selected 

 eight fine capsules for sowing; and they included on an 

 average 54.8 seeds, with a maximum of 72. He gave me 



