302 'DIFFERENT FORMS OF FLOWERS [1862. 



of heaven have a look at some of your species, and if you 

 can get me seed, do ; I want much to try species with few 

 stamens, if they are dimorphic ; Nes&a verticillata I should 

 expect to be trimorphic. Seed ! Seed ! Seed ! I should rather 

 like seed of Mitchella. But oh, Lythrum ! 



Your utterly mad friend, 



C. DARWIN. 



P.S. There is reason in my madness, for I can see that to 

 those who already believe in change of species, these facts 

 will modify to a certain extent the whole view of Hybridity.* 



[On the same subject he wrote to Sir Joseph Hooker in 

 August 1862 : 



"Is Oliver at Kew? When I am established at Bourne- 

 mouth I am completely mad to examine any fresh flowers of 

 any Lythraceous plant, and I would write and ask him if any 

 are in bloom." 



Again he wrote to the same friend in October : 



" If you ask Oliver, I think he will tell you I have got a 

 real odd case in Lythrum, it interests me extremely, and 

 seems to me the strangest case of propagation recorded 

 amongst plants or animals, viz. a necessary triple alliance 

 between three hermaphrodites. I feel sure I can now prove 

 the truth of the case from a multitude of crosses made this 

 summer." 



* A letter to Dr. Gray (July, me as truly wonderful, that the 



1862) bears on this point : " A few stigma distinguishes the pollen; 



days ago I made an observation and is penetrated by the tubes of 



which has surprised me more than the one and not by those of the 



it ought to do it will have to be other; nor are the tubes exserted. 



repeated several times, but I have Or (which is the same thing) the 



scarcely a doubt of its accuracy. I stigma of the one form acts on and 



stated in my Primula paper that is acted on by pollen, which produces 



the long-styled form of Linum not the least effect on the stigma of 



grandiflorum was utterly sterile the other form. Taking sexual 



with its own pollen ; I have lately power as the criterion of difference, 



been putting the pollen of the two the two forms of this one species 



forms on the division of the stigma may be said to be generically 



of the same flower ; and it strikes distinct." 



