204 ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPRING OF CHAP. V 



gitimately fertilised with pollen from the same form, 

 evince a strong, but not exclusive, tendency to repro- 

 duce the parent-form. When the short-styled form 

 was illegitimately fertilised by the long-styled form 

 (Class V.), and again when the mid-styled was illegiti- 

 mately fertilised by the long-styled (Class VI.), in 

 each case the two parent-forms alone were reproduced. 

 As thirty-seven plants were raised from these two 

 unions, we may, with much confidence, believe that it 

 is the rule that plants thus derived usually consist of 

 both parent-forms, but not of the third form. When, 

 however, the mid-styled form was illegitimately fer- 

 tilised by the longest stamens of the short-styled 

 (Class VII.), the same rule did not hold good ; for the 

 seedlings consisted of all three forms. The illegiti- 

 mate union from which these latter seedlings were 

 raised is, as previously stated, singularly fertile, and 

 the seedlings themselves exhibited no signs of sterility 

 and grew to their full height. From the consideration 

 of these several facts, and from analogous ones to be 

 given under Oxalis, it seems probable that in a state 

 of nature the pistil of each form usually receives, 

 through the agency of insects, pollen from the stamens 

 of corresponding height from both the other forms. 

 But the case last given shows that the application of 

 two kinds of pollen is not indispensable for the pro- 

 duction of all three forms. Hildebrand has suggested 

 that the cause of all three forms being regularly and 

 naturally reproduced, may be that some of the flowers 

 are fertilised with one kind of pollen, and others 

 on the same plant with the other kind of pollen. 

 Finally, of the three forms, the long-styled evinces 

 somewhat the strongest tendency to reappear amongst 

 the offspring, whether both, or one, or neither of the 

 parents are long-styled. 



