IN THE SPECIES OF PRIMULA. 83. 
These figures, reduced as before, give the following proportions :— 
| Number | Weight of| Number | Weight of 
H of seed in of seed in 
| Plants. grains. | Umbels. | grains. 
| 
Short-styled Cowslips ...| 100 1585 100 430 
Long-styled Cowslips ...| 100 1093 100 332 
The season was much better this year thau the last, and the 
plants grew in good soil, instead of in ashady wood or struggling 
with other plants in the open field; consequently the actual pro- 
duce of seed was considerably greater. Nevertheless we have the 
same relative result; for the short-styled plants produced more 
seed than the long-styled in the proportion of three to two; but if 
we take the fairest standard of comparison, namely, the number of 
umbels, the excess is, as in the former case, as four to three. 
I marked also some Primroses, all growing together under the 
same conditions; and we here see the product :— 
( 
Total Weight D . 
| No. of N o. of Good of seed Š .. ov Wei ht 
lants. - a 
ui sales. sules grains Oo 5 sules. | seed. 
a8 
i a 
Short-styled Primroses 8 | 49 | 40 | 16 |. | 100 | 40 
Long-styled Primroses| 9 68 50 10 |O i 100 | 20 
The number of Primrose plants tried was hardly sufficient, and 
the season was bad ; but we here again see (excluding the capsules 
which contained no seed) the same result in a still more marked 
manner, for the short-styled plants were twice as productive of 
seed as the long-styled plants. 
I had, of course, no means of ascertaining the relative fertility of 
the two forms of the Chinese Primrose in a natural condition, and 
the result of artificial fertilization can hardly be trusted; but six- 
teen capsules from long-styled flowers, properly fertilized, produce 
93 grains' weight of seed, whereas eight capsules of short-styled 
flowers produced 6:1 grains; so that if the same number, namely, 
16 of the latter, had been fertilized, the weight of seed would have 
been 12-2, which would have been nearly in the proportion of four 
to three, as in Cowslips. 
Looking to the trials made during two successive years on the 
large number of Cowslips, and on these facts with regard to com- 
mon Primroses and Chinese Primroses, we may safely conclude 
that the short-styled forms in these species are more productive 
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