232 ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPRING OF CHAP. V. 



legitimate plants sometimes yield. But this high aver- 

 age was almost certainly false ; and I mention the case 

 for the sake of showing the difficulty of arriving at a 

 fair result ; for this average mainly depended on two 

 capsules containing the extraordinary numbers of 7> 

 and 56 seeds ; these seeds, however, though I felt 

 bound to count them, were so poor that, judging from 

 trials made in other cases, I do not suppose that one 

 would have germinated ; and therefore they ought not 

 to have been included. Lastly, 20 flowers were legiti- 

 mately fertilised with pollen from a legitimate plant, 

 and this increased their fertility; for they produced 

 10 capsules. Yet this is but a very small proportion 

 for a legitimate union. 



There can, therefore, be no doubt that these five 

 long-styled plants and the one short-styled plant of 

 the first illegitimate generation were extremely sterile. 

 Their sterility was shown, as in the case of hybrid*, 

 in another way, namely, by their flowering profusely, 

 and especially by the long endurance of the flowery. 

 For instance, I fertilised many flowers on these plants, 

 and fifteen days afterwards (viz. on March 22nd) I 

 fertilised numerous long-styled and short-styled flowers 

 on common cowslips growing close by. These latter 

 flowers, on April 8th, were withered, whilst most of the 

 illegitimate flowers remained quite fresh for several 

 days subsequently ; so that some of these illegitimate 

 plants, after being fertilised, remained in full bloom 

 for above a month. 



We will now turn to the fertility of the 53 illegiti- 

 mate long-styled grandchildren, descended from the 

 long-styled plant which was first fertilised with its 

 own pollen. The pollen in two of these plants included 

 a multitude of small and shrivelled grains. Never- 

 theless they were not very sterile ; for 25 flowers, ler- 



