232 ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPRING OF Chap. V. 



gether, in the course of the three years, no less than 

 160 flowers on these five illegitimate long-styled plants 

 were fertilised with their own pollen, but they yielded 

 only 22 capsules. According to the standard above 

 given, they ought to have yielded 80 capsules. 



These 22 capsules contained on an average 15.1 seeds. 

 I believe, subject to the doubts before specified, that 

 with legitimate plants the average number from a 

 union of this nature would have been above 20 seeds. 

 Twenty-four flowers on these same five illegitimate 

 long-styled plants were legitimately fertilised with 

 pollen from the above-described illegitimate short- 

 styled plant, and produced only 9 capsules, which is 

 an extremely small number for a legitimate union. 

 These 9 capsules, however, contained an average of 38 

 apparently good seeds, which is as large a number as 

 legitimate plants sometimes yield. But this high aver- 

 age was almost certainly false; and I mention the case 

 for the sake of showing the difficulty of arriving at 

 a fair result; for this average mainly depended on two 

 capsules containing the extraordinary numbers of 75 

 and 56 seeds; these seeds, however, though I felt bound 

 to count them, were so poor that, judging from trials 

 made in other cases, I do not suppose that one would 

 have germinated ; and therefore they ought not to have 

 been included. Lastly, 20 flowers were legitimately fer- 

 tilised with pollen from a legitimate plant, and this in- 

 : creased their fertility; for they produced 10 capsules. 

 Yet this is but a very small proportion for a legitimate 

 union. 



There can, therefore, be no doubt that these five 

 long-styled plants and the one short-styled plant of 

 the first illegitimate generation were extremely sterile. 

 Their sterility was shown, as in the case of hybrids, 

 in another way, namely, by their flowering profusely, 







