ch. ii.] 'DESCENT OF MAN.' 51 



During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the 

 Effects of Cross- and Self- Fertilisation in the Vegetable 

 Kingdom. This book will form a complement to that on 

 the Fertilisation of Orchids, in which I showed how per- 

 fect were the means for cross-fertilisation, and here I shall 

 show how important are the results. I was led to make, 

 during eleven years, the numerous experiments recorded in 

 this volume, by a mere accidental observation ; and indeed 

 it required the accident to be repeated before my attention 

 was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seed- 

 lings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the 

 first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings of cross- 

 fertilised parentage. I hope also to republish a revised 

 edition of my book on Orchids, and hereafter my papers 

 on dimorphic and trimorphic plants, together with some 

 additional observations on allied points which I never have 

 had time to arrange. My strength will then probably be 

 exhausted, and I shall be ready to exclaim " Nunc dimittis." 



Written May 1st, 1881. The Effects of Cross- and 

 Self -Fertilisation was published in the autumn of 1876 ; 

 and the results there arrived at explain, as I believe, the 

 endless and wonderful contrivances for the transportal of 

 pollen from one plant to another of the same species. I 

 now believe, however, chiefly from the observations of Her- 

 mann Miiller, that I ought to have insisted more strongly 

 than I did on the many adaptations for self-fertilisation ; 

 though I was well aware of many such adaptations. A 

 much enlarged edition of my Fertilisation of Orchids was 

 published in 1877. 



In this same year Tlie Different Forms of Flowers, &c, 

 appeared, and in 1880 a second edition. This book consists 

 chiefly of the several papers on Hetero-styled flowers origi- 

 nally published by the Linnean Society, corrected, with 

 much new matter added, together with observations on some 

 other cases in which the same plant bears two kinds of 

 flowers. As before remarked, no little discovery of mine 

 ever gave me so much pleasure as the making out the 

 meaning of hetero-styled flowers. The results of crossing 

 such flowers in an illegitimate manner, I believe to be very 

 important, as bearing on the sterility of hybrids ; although 

 these results have been noticed by only a few persons. 



In 1879, I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause's Life 

 of Erasmus Danvin published, and I added a sketch of 

 his character and habits from material in my possession. 



