300 GYNO-DKECIOUS PLANTS. CHAP. VII 



corolla, and their anthers do not contain any sound 

 pollen ; but after long search I found a single plant 

 with the stamens moderately exserted, and their 

 anthers contained a very few full-sized grains, together 

 with a multitude of minute empty ones. In some 

 females the stamens are extremely short, and their 

 minute anthers, though divided into the two normal 

 cells or loculi, contained not a trace of pollen : in 

 others again the anthers did not exceed in diameter 

 the filaments which supported them, and were not 

 divided into two loculi. Judging from what I have 

 myself seen and from the descriptions of others, all 

 the plants in Britain, Germany, and near Mentone, 

 are in the state just described ; and I have never 

 found a single flower with an aborted pistil. It is, 

 therefore, remarkable that, according to Delpino,* this 

 plant near Florence is generally trimorphic, consisting 

 of males with aborted pistils, females with aborted 

 stamens, and hermaphrodites. 



I found it very difficult to judge of the proportional 

 number of the two forms at Torquay. They often 

 grow mingled together, but with large patches con- 

 sisting of one form alone. At first I thought that the 

 two were nearly equal in number ; but on examining 

 every plant which grew close to the edge of a little 

 overhanging dry cliff, about 200 yards in length, 1 

 found only 12 females; all the rest, some hundreds 

 in number, being hermaphrodites. Again, on an 

 extensive gently sloping bank, which was so thickly 

 covered with this plant that, viewed from the distance 

 of half a mile it appeared of a pink colour, I could 

 not discover a single female. Therefore the her- 



* ' SulT Opera, la Distribuzione H. Muller, ' Die Befrnchtung, 

 del Sesai nelle Piante, &c.' 1867, &c.,' p. 327. 

 p. 7. With respect to Germany, 



