CHAP. IV. VISCAR1A OCULATA. 131 



fertilised flowers would have been in weight as 100 to 38. I had 

 previously selected a medium-sized capsule from each lot, and 

 counted the seeds in both ; the crossed one contained 284, and 

 the self-fertilised one 126 seeds; or as 100 to 44. These seeds 

 were sown on opposite sides of three pots, and several seedlings 

 raised; but only the tallest flower-stem of one plant on each 

 side was measured. The three on the crossed side averaged 32 '5 

 inches, and the three on the self-fertilised side 34 inches in 

 height ; or as 100 to 104. But this trial was on much too small 

 a scale to be trusted ; the plants also grew BO unequally that 

 one of the three flower-stems on the crossed plants was very 

 nearly twice as tall as that on one of the others; and one of 

 the three flower-stems on the self-fertilised plants exceeded in 

 an equal degree one of the others. 



In the following year the experiment was repeated on a larger 

 scale: ten flowers were crossed on a new set of plants and 

 yielded ten capsules containing by weight 6 54 grains of seed. 

 Eighteen spontaneously self-fertilised capsules were gathered, 

 of which two contained no seed ; the other sixteen contained by 

 weight 6 '07 grains of seed. Therefore the weight of seed from 

 an equal number of crossed and spontaneously self-fertilised 

 flowers (instead of artificially fertilised as in the previous case) 

 was as 100 to 58. 



The seeds after germinating on sand were planted in pairs on 

 the opposite sides of four pots, with all the remaining seeds sown 

 crowded in the opposite sides of a fifth pot ; in this latter pot 

 only the tallest plant on each side was measured. Until the 

 seedlings had grown about 5 inches in height no difference 

 could be perceived in the two lots. Both lots flowered at nearly 

 the same time. When they had almost done flowering, the 

 tallest flower-stem on each plant was measured, as shown in the 

 following table (XLV.). 



The fifteen crossed plants here average 34 '5, and the fifteen 

 self-fertilised 33 '55 inches in height; or as 100 to 97. So that 

 the excess of height of the crossed plants is quite insignificant. In 

 productiveness, however, the difference was much more plainly 

 marked. All the capsules were gathered from both lots of plants 

 (except from the crowded and unproductive ones in Pot V.), and 

 at the close of the season the few remaining flowers were added 

 in. The fourteen crossed plants produced 381, whilst the four- 

 teen self-fertilised plants produced only 293 capsules and flowers, 

 or as 100 to 77. 



K 2 



