NOTES ON POLLINATION AND CROSS-FERTILISA- 

 TION IN THE COMMON RICE PLANT, ORYZA 

 SATIVA, LINN. 



BY J 



G. P. HECTOR, M.A., B.sc, ^ 



Economic Botanist, Bengal. 



I. — Introductory, 



Ddring the past two years a large number of varieties of 

 rice, cultivated in the districts of Lower Bengal, have been grown 

 on the Dacca farm, with the object of studying their characters 

 in single plant cultures and of ascertaining to what extent, if 

 any, natural cross-fertilisation takes place, as a correct estima- 

 tion of this latter point and of the precautions likely to be 

 necessary to keep varieties pure, is an essential preliminary to 

 the work of successfully distributing seed of improved types. 

 This preliminary work is necessary in the case of all crops, but 

 particularly so in the case of a crop like rice, in which the 

 number of cultivated varieties, differing frequently by most 

 minute points of difference, is very large, and the risk of accidental 

 mixture of seed very great, owing to the peculiar conditions under 

 which rice is grown. 



Though the results obtained up to date are far from complete, 

 they have shown that while some types are much superior to 

 others and self-fertilisation is the normal process, cross-fertilisa- 

 tion does undoubtedly take place and under certain circum- 

 stances may considerably affect the successful introduction of an 

 improved type into any particular locality where other inferior 

 types are commonly grown. This question of polHnation and 



