I857-] FERTILISATION OF FLOWERS. 435 



thing to be made out about the Leguminosae, which will 

 bring the case within our theory ; though I have failed to do 

 so. Our theory will explain why in the vegetable and animal 

 kingdom the act of fertilisation even in hermaphrodites usu- 

 ally takes place sub-Jove, though thus exposed to great injury 

 from damp and rain. In animals which cannot be [fertilised] 

 by insects or wind, there is no ccse of /^;z^-animals being her- 

 maphrodite without the concourse of two individuals." 



A letter to Dr. Asa Gray (Sept. 5th, 1857) gives the sub- 

 stance of the paper in the Gardeners' Chronicle : — 



" Lately I was led to examine buds of kidney bean with 

 the pollen shed ; but I was led to believe that the pollen 

 could hardly get on the stigma by wind or otherwise, except 

 by bees visiting [the flower] and moving the wing petals : 

 hence I included a small bunch of flowers in two bottles in 

 every way treated the same : the flowers in one 1 daily just 

 momentarily moved, as if by a bee ; these set three fine pods, 

 the other not one. Of course this little experiment must be 

 tried again, and this year in England it is too late, as the 

 flowers seem now seldom to set. If bees are necessary to 

 this flower's self-fertilisation, bees must almost cross them, as 

 their dusted right-side of head and right legs constantly 

 touch the stigma. 



"I have, also, lately been re-observing daily Lobelia fiil- 

 gens — this in my garden is never visited by insects, and never 

 sets seeds, without pollen be put on the stigma (whereas the 

 small blue Lobelia is visited by bees and does set seed) ; I 

 mention this because there are such beautiful contrivances to 

 prevent the stigma ever getting its own pollen ; which seems 

 only explicable on the doctrine of the advantage of crosses." 



The paper was supplemented by a second in 1858.* The 

 chief object of these publications seems to have been to obtain 



* Gardeners' Chronicle, 1858, p. 82S. In 1S61 another paper on Fer- 

 tilisation appeared in the Gardeners' Chronicle, p. 552, in which he ex- 

 plained the action of insects on Vinca major. He was attracted to the 

 periwinkle by the fact that it is not visited by insects and never sets seeds. 



