Chap. III. 



ORIGANUM VULGAIitt. 



95 



plant in one pot was a very little taller than the tallest self- 

 fertilised plant on the opposite side, and in the other pot 

 exactly the reverse occurred. So that the two lots were in fact 

 equal ; and a cross of this kind did no more good than crossing 

 two flowers on the same plant of Ipomoea or Mimulus. 



The plants were turned out of the two pots without being 

 disturbed and planted in the open ground, in order that they 

 might grow more vigorously. In the following summer all the 

 self-fertilised and some of the quasi-crossed plants were covered 

 by a net. Many flowers on the latter were crossed by me with 

 pollen from a distinct plant, and others were left to be crossed 

 by the bees. These quasi-crossed plants produced rather more 

 seed than did the original ones in the great clump when left 

 to the action of the bees. Many flowers on the self-fertilised 

 plants were artificially self-fertilised, and others were allowed 

 to fertilise themselves spontaneously under the net, but they 

 yielded altogether very few seeds. These two lots of seeds 

 the product of a cross between distinct seedlings, instead of as 

 in the last case between plants multiplied by stolons, and the 

 product of self-fertilised flowers were allowed to germinate on 

 bare sand, and several equal pairs were planted on opposite 

 sides of two large pots. At a very early age the crossed 

 plants showed some superiority over the self-fertilised, which 

 was ever afterwards retained. When the plants were fully 

 grown, the two tallest crossed and the two tallest self-fertilised 

 plants in each pot were measured, as shown in the following 

 table. I regret that from want of time I did not measure all 

 the pairs ; but the tallest on each side seemed fairly to represent 

 the average difference between the two lots. 



Table XXVIII. 



