i 



Chap. VII. GYXO-DKECIOUS PLANTS. 301 



the form independently of inheritance; for I sowed 

 in the same small bed seeds of T. serpyllum, gathered 

 at Torquay from the female alone, and these produced 

 an abundance of both forms. There is every reason 

 to believe, from large patches consisting of the same 

 form, that the same individual plant, however much 

 it may spread, always retains the same form. In two 

 distant gardens I found masses of the lemon-thyme (T. 

 citriodorus, a var. of T. serpyllum) , which I was in- 

 formed had grown there during many years, and every 

 flower was female. 



With respect to the fertility of the two forms, I 

 marked at Torquay a large hermaphrodite and a large 

 female plant of nearly equal sizes, and when the seeds 

 were ripe I gathered all the heads. The two heaps were 

 of very nearly equal bulk; but the heads from the fe- 

 male plant numbered 160, and their seeds weighed 8.7 

 grains; whilst those from the hermaphrodite plant num- 

 bered 200, and their seeds weighed only 4.9 grains; so 

 that the seeds from the female plant were to those from 

 the hermaphrodite as 100 to 56 in weight. If the rela- 

 tive weight of the seeds from an equal number of 

 flower-heads from the two forms be compared, the ratio 

 is as 100 for the female to 45 for the hermaphrodite 

 form. 



Thymus vulgaris. — The common garden thyme re- 

 sembles in almost every respect T. serpyllum. The 

 same slight differences between the stigmas of the two 

 forms could be perceived. In the females the stamens 

 are not generally quite so much reduced as in the same 

 form of T. serpyllum. In some specimens sent me 

 from Mentone by Mr. Moggridge, together with the ac- 

 companying sketches, the anthers of the female, though 

 small, were well formed, but they contained very little 

 pollen, and not a single sound grain could be de- 



