CHAP. V. HETEROSTYLED DIMORPHIC PLANTS. 219 



TABLE 31. 

 Primula Sinensis. 



plants when self -fertilised. I was thus led to examine the 

 plants in several small collections, and the result showed 

 that the equal-styled variety was not rare. 



In a state of nature the long- and short-styled forms 

 would no doubt occur in nearly equal numbers, as I infer 

 from the analogy of the other heterostyled species of 

 Primula, and from having raised the two forms of the pres- 

 ent species in exactly the same number from flowers which 

 had been legitimately crossed. The preponderance in the 

 above table of the long-styled form over the short-styled (in 

 the proportion of 134 to 51) results from gardeners gener- 

 ally collecting seed from self -fertilised flowers; and the 

 long-styled flowers produce spontaneously much more seed 

 (as shown in the first chapter) than the short-styled, owing 

 to the anthers of the long-styled form being placed low 

 down in the corolla, so that, when the flowers fall off, the 

 anthers are dragged over the stigma; and we now also 

 know that long-styled plants, when self -fertilised, very gen- 

 erally reproduce long-styled offspring. From the con- 

 sideration of this table, it occurred to me in the year 1862, 

 that almost all the plants of the Chinese primrose culti- 

 vated in England would sooner or later become long-styled 

 or equal-styled; and now, at the close of 1876, I have had 

 five small collections of plants examined, and almost all 

 consisted of long-styled, with some more or less well-char- 

 acterised equal-styled plants, but with not one short-styled. 



With respect to the equal-styled plants in the table, 



