232 REMARKS ON SOME DIOICIOUS PLANTS. 
and the two sexes very rarely ¢ogether. I have once seen a male and 
female stem growing close together, but could not ascertain whether 
or not they were thrown out from the same rootstock, although I think 
it probable; for, judging from the natures of other plants, there is no 
reason to believe that the rootstock is male or female, but that it is 
capable of throwing up either a male or female stem at different times, 
as circumstances or the nature of the plant may direct. I know this 
to be the case in another instance. 
I may however say, that in various berries of the Bryony I have 
planted in my own garden, all the seeds contained in each separate 
berry produced plants of one sex, for a single berry does not appear 
to contain seeds capable of producing plants of both sexes the first 
year. This sufficiently accounts for the groups of male or.female 
plants usually seen in the hedges.* Should a bird, for instance, drop 
a berry in any locality, it would produce a group of males, or a group 
of females, although I am inclined to think a male plant one year may 
become a female plant another year. But in Bryonia, contrary to my 
experience in other dioicious plants, I have never found occasional male 
flowers on a female plant, or occasional female flowers on a male plant. 
It is common to find a female plant or a group of females (with no 
male anywhere near), with all the seeds fertilized and covered with ripe 
berries. In some female plants growing in my neighbourhood, and 
removed a considerable distance from all males I have seen nearly 
every flower fertilized, and when the female flowers were examined, I 
f, d uh is i p 1 . : &lot1- 144 
1 
E y with pollen, B 
male plants by insects, as every one who has noticed Bryouia must 
have observed what a profuse quantity of pollen their anthers shed. 
I will now turn to Lychnis diurna, or dioica rubra. I am not aware 
that the female form of this plant is said to be able to fertilize itself, 
but to a superficial observer it might well be supposed to do so. 
From my own experiments I well know individual specimens of this 
plant to be sometimes entirely male, then moncecious, and eventually 
entirely female. I have a plant in my garden, the rootstock of which 
has produced all three since the early spring of this year. When first 
planted, it threw up stems containing male flowers only. This con- 
, > Ithink seeds themselves are probably not either male or female, but that after 
influences produce the sex; as in ani the sex is not developed in the early em- 
bryo life of the creature, nor till the embryo has attained a certain age. 
