86 HETEROSTYLED DIMORPHIC PLANTS. CHAP. III. 



7 6 seeds, but of apparently good seed only 4 3 pei 

 capsule. At three separate times nearly a hundred 

 flowers were fertilised illegitimately with their own- 

 form pollen, taken from separate plants ; and nu- 

 merous other flowers were produced, many of which 

 must have received their own pollen. From all these 

 flowers on the seventeen short-styled plants only fifteen 

 capsules were produced, of which only eleven con- 

 tained any good seed, on an average 4' 2 per capsule. 

 As remarked in the case of the long-styled plants, 

 some even of these capsules were perhaps the product 

 of a little pollen accidentally fallen from the adjoining 

 flowers of the other form on to the stigmas, or trans- 

 ported by Thrips. Nevertheless the short-styled plants 

 seem to be slightly more fertile with their own pollen 

 than the long-styled, in the proportion of fifteen cap- 

 sules to three ; nor can this difference be accounted 

 for by the short-styled stigmas being more liable to 

 receive their own pollen than the long-styled, for the 

 reverse is the case. The greater self-fertility of the 

 short-styled flowers was likewise shown in 1861 by 

 the plants in my flower-garden, which were left to 

 themselves, and were but sparingly visited by insects. 



On account of the probability of some of the flowers 

 on the plants of both forms, which were covered under 

 the same net, having been legitimately fertilised in 

 an accidental manner, the relative fertility of the two 

 legitimate and two illegitimate unions cannot be 

 compared with certainty ; but judging from the 

 number of good seeds per capsule, the difference was 

 at least in the ratio of 100 to 7, and probably much 

 greater. 



Hildebrand tested my results, but only on a single 

 short-styled plant, by fertilising many flowers with 

 their own-form pollen ; and these did not produce any 



