100 HETEROSTYLED DIMORPHIC PLANTS. CHAP. III. 



evince some slight capacity for fertilisation with their 

 own-form pollen, these three capsules may have been 

 the product of self-fertilisation. 



Besides the three species now described, the yellow- 

 flowered L. corymbiferum is certainly heterostyled, 

 as is, according to Planchon,* L. salsoloidcs. This 

 botanist is the only one who seems to have inferred 

 that heterostylism might have some important func- 

 tional bearing. Dr. Alefeld, who has made a special 

 study of the genus, saysf that about half of the sixty- 

 five species known to him are heterostyled. This is 

 the case with L. trigynum, which differs so much from 

 the other species that it has been formed by him into 

 a distinct genus. J According to the same author, none 

 of the species which inhabit America and the Cape of 

 Good Hope are heterostyled. 



I have examined only three homostyled species, 

 namely, L. usitatissimum,, angustifolium, and catharti- 

 cum. I raised 111 plants of a variety of the first-named 

 species, and these, when protected under a net, all 

 produced plenty of seed. The flowers, according to 

 H. Miiller, are frequented by bees and moths. With 

 respect to L. catharticum, the same author shows that 

 the flowers are so constructed that they can freely 

 fertilise themselves; but if visited by insects they 

 might be cross-fertilised. He has, however, only once 

 seen the flowers thus visited during the day; but it may 

 be suspected that they are frequented during the night 

 by small moths for the sake of the five minute drops 



* Hooker's 'London Journal of Journal of Botany,' 1848, vol. vii. 



Botany,' 1848, vol. vii. p. 174. p. 525) to be provided with 



t 'Bot. Zeitung,' Sept. 18,1863, staminibus cxsertis;" another 



p. 281. with " stylis staminibus longiori- 



I It is not improbable that the bus," and another has stamina 5, 



allied genus, Hugonia, is hetero- majora. stylos longe superantia." 



styled, for one species is said by \ ' Die Befruchtung der Blu- 



Planchon (Hooker's 'London men,' &c., p. 168. 



