296 BOTANY [CHAP. X 



Letter 622 rectangularly (as in the sketch sent), and then in a few days 

 becomes straight : the stamens also move. If there be not 

 two forms of Rhexia t will you compare the position of the 

 part in young and old flowers? I have a suspicion (perhaps 

 it will be proved wrong when the seed-capsules are ripe) that 

 one set of anthers are adapted to the pistil in early state, and 

 the other set for it in its later state. If bees visit the RJiexia, 

 for Heaven's sake watch exactly how the anther and stigma 

 strike them, both in old and young flowers, and give me a 

 sketch. 



Again I say, do not hate me. 



Letter 623 To J. D. Hooker. 



Leith Hill Place, Dorking, Thursday, i$th [May 1862]. 



You stated at the Linnean Society that different sets of 

 seedling Cinchona 1 grew at very different rate, and from my 

 Primula case you attributed it probably to two sorts of pollen. 

 I confess I thought you rash, but 1 now believe you were 

 quite right. I find the yellow and crimson anthers of the 

 same flower in the Melastomatous Heterocentron roseum have 

 different powers ; the yellow producing on the same plant 

 thrice as many seeds as the crimson anthers. I got my 

 neighbour's most skilful gardener to sow both kinds of seeds, 

 and yesterday he came to me and said it is a most extra- 

 ordinary thing that though both lots have been treated 

 exactly alike, one lot all remain dwarfs and the other lot are 

 all rising high up. The dwarfs were produced by the pollen 

 of the crimson anthers. In Monochcztum ensiferum the facts 

 are more complex and still more strange ; as the age and 

 position of the pistils comes into play, in relation to the two 

 kinds of pollen. These facts seem to me so curious that 

 I do not scruple to ask you to see whether you can lend me 

 any Melastomad just before flowering, with a not very small 

 flower, and which will endure for a short time a greenhouse or 

 sitting-room ; when fertilised and watered 1 could send it to 

 Mr. Turnbull's to a cool stove to mature seed. I fully believe 

 the case is worth investigation. 



P.S.--You will not have time at present to read my orchid 

 book ; I never before felt half so doubtful about anything 



1 Cinchona is apparently heterostyled : see Forms of Flowers, 

 Ed. II., p. 134. 



