300 GYNO-DICECIOUS PLANTS. CHAP. VII. 



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 hermaphro- 

 dites. 



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, I 

 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 a distance 

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

 not discover a single female. Therefore the her- 

 maphrodites must greatly exceed in number the fe- 

 males, at least in the localities examined by me. A 

 very dry station apparently favours the presence 

 of the female form. With some of the other above- 

 named Labiatae the nature of the soil or climate 

 likewise seems to determine the presence of one or 

 both forms; thus with Nepeta glechoma, Mr. Hart 

 found in 1873 that all the plants which he examined 

 near Kilkenny in Ireland were females; whilst all near 

 Bath were hermaphrodites, and near Hertford both 

 forms were present, but with a preponderance of her- 

 maphrodites, f " It would, however, be a mistake to 

 suppose that the nature of the conditions determines 



* ' Sull' Opera la Distribuzione H. Miillor, ' Die Befruchtung, 

 del Sessi nello Piante. &c.,' 1867, &c.,' r>. 327. 

 p. 7. With respect to Germany, f ' Nature,' June 1873, p. 162. 



