178 MK. C. DAB-niX Oy THE SESI'AL KELATION'S OF 



seeu mid-st}4ed stigmas rougher than those of the long-styled. 

 The degree to which the longer and middle stamens are graduated 

 in length and are upturned at their ends is variable ; sometimes 

 all are equal. The colour of the green pollen in the long stamens 

 is Tariable *, and is sometimes pale greenish yellow ; in one short- 

 styled plant it was almost white. The grains vary a little in. 

 size : I osamiued one short-styled plant witli the grains above 

 the average size ; and I have seen a long-styled plant with un- 

 distinguishable grains from the longer and shorter anthers. "VVe 

 have here considerable fluctuations of character; and if any of 

 these slight structural diiferences Avere of direct service to the 

 plant, or wore correlated with useful functional diflerences, we 

 can perceive that the species is just in that state in which natural 

 selection might readily do much for its modification. 



To return to our proper subject — we see that there are three 

 kinds of females and three kinds of males, each kind of the latter 

 being borne by half-dozens on two of the three forms. It remains 

 to discover whether these several sexes or sexual organs differ from 

 each other in function. Nothing brings more prominently forward 

 the complexity of the reproductive system of this extraordinary 

 plant, than the necessity, in order to ascertain the above fact, of 

 artificially making eighteen distinct unions. Thus the long-styled 

 form had to be fertilized with pollen from its own two distinct 

 kinds of anthers, from the two in the mid-styled, and from the two 

 in the short-styled form. The same process had to be repeated 

 with both the mid- and short-styled forms. It might have been 

 thought sufficient to have tried on each stigma the green pollen, 

 for instance, from either the mid- or short-styled longer stamens, 

 and not from both ; but the result proves that this would have ■ 

 been insuificient, and that it was necessary to try all six kinds of 

 pollen on each stigma. As in artificial fertilizations there wiU 

 always be some failures, it would have been advisable to have 



* Lagerstrcemia Indica, one of the Lythraoeie, is strangely variable in its 

 stamens — I presume in part due to its growth in a hothouse. The most per- 

 fect flowers produced with me fire very long stamens with thick flesh-coloured 

 filaments and green pollen, and from nineteen to tw-enty-nine short stamens with 

 yellow pollen ; hut many flowers produced only one, two, three, or four long 

 stamens with green pollen, which in some of the anthers was wholly replaced 

 by yellow pollen ; one anther offered the singular case of half, or one cell being 

 filled with bright green, and the other cell with bright yellow pollen. One petal 

 had a furrow near its base, which contained poUen. Accordmg to analogy with 

 Lt/thrum, this species would produce three forms ; if so, the above plant was a 

 mid-3tyled form : it was quite sterile with its own two kinds of pollen. 



