THE 



NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW 



A 



QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 



%ivnxv^. 



XXV. — On the Tavo Forms, or Dimorphic Conditions, in the 

 Species op Pritnula, and on their remarkable Sexual Ke- 

 LATiONS. By Charles Darwin. Linnean Society's Journal, \I. 

 (Botany), pjj. 77-96. 



We do not wisli to attach an undue importance to the observations 

 which have been here recorded by Mr. Darwin upon the remarkable 

 sexual relations which he has proved to exist between individuals of 

 that very commonest and most familiar of our spring favourites, the 

 Primrose ; yet we may say, with all sincerity, that Botanical Science 

 has, of late years, been enriched with few of equal value. And this 

 impresses us as especially the case if we regard the impulse and 

 direction which these obsei'vations must necessarily give to future 

 investigation. The simj)le fact that, in one set of primroses or cow- 

 slips, the stigma reaches to the mouth of the corolla-tube, the anthers 

 being externally invisible, while in the other set the anthers surround 

 and close its mouth while the stigma is far down the tube, is not, of 

 course, advanced by Mr. Darwin as novel. As he says, gardeners 

 speak of the two forms as the " pin-eyed " (with stigma at the mouth 

 of tube) and "thumb-eyed" (with anthers at mouth of tube). Child- 

 ren too, he tells us, select the former for their necklaces ; the upper 

 part of the corolla-tube being wider, and not closed by sessile anthers, 

 they more easily slip them over each other. It is the satisfactory 

 explanation which, with characteristic sagacity, this distinguished 

 zoologist oifers of the (botanical) fact that primarily concerns us, 

 and it is this that we so greatly admire. 



We feel that we are yet far from being in a position to enter 

 upon a discussion of the general question of sexuality in plants : it is 

 a very large subject, and the basis upon which we can rest an argu- 

 ment is much too slender for useful application. We shall be content, 



N. H. R.— 1862. 8 



