Chap. VII. GYNO-DKECIOUS PLANTS. 299 



I 



female, form likewise appears to be rare, for I raised 

 many seedlings from both, and all were hermaphrodites. 

 It has already been remarked in the Introduction that 

 andro-dicecious species, as they may be called, or those 

 which consist of hermaphrodites and males, are extreme- 

 ly rare, or hardly exist. 



Thymus serpyllum. — The hermaphrodite plants pre- 

 sent nothing particular in the state of' their reproduc- 

 tive organs ; and so it is in all the following cases. The 



■ 



females of the present species produce rather fewer 

 flowers and have somewhat smaller corollas than the 

 hermaphrodites; so that near Torquay, where this 

 plant abounds, I could, after a little practice, distin- 

 guish the two forms whilst walking quickly past them. 

 According to Vaucher, the smaller size of the corolla 

 is common to the females of most or all of the above- 

 mentioned Labiatae. The pistil of the female, though 

 somewhat variable in length, is generally shorter, 

 with the margins of the stigma broader and formed 

 of more lax tissue, than that of the hermaphrodite. 

 The stamens in the female vary excessively in length; 

 they are generally enclosed within the tube of the 

 corolla, and their anthers do not contain any sound 

 pollen; but after long search I found a single plant 

 with the stamens moderately exserted, and their an- 

 thers contained a very few full-sized grains, together 

 with a multitude of minute empty ones. In some fe- 

 males the stamens are extremely short, and their minute 

 anthers, though divided into the two normal cells or 

 . loculi, contained not a trace of .pollen: in others again 

 the anthers did not exceed in diameter the filaments 

 which supported them, and were not divided into two 

 loculi. Judging from what I have myself seen and 

 from the descriptions of others, all the plants in Brit- 

 ain, Germany, and near Mentone, are in the state just 



