18 Mr Willis, On Gynodioecism in the Lahiatce. [Nov. 14, 



current year, but as it now seems certain that they cannot be 

 completed in a satisfactor}'- way for some years to come, it appears 

 advisable to give a brief statement of some more of the results 

 so far arrived at, leaving the full discussion until the conclusion 

 of the research. 



The observations of 1892 have been made chiefly upon female 

 plants of Origanum vulgare. From the hermaphrodite plants on 

 the "Labiatae" bed in the Cambridge Botanic Gardens*, seed 

 was gathered in 1890 and a bed of seedlings was planted out. 

 These flowered in the present year, and a number of them turned 

 out female plants. Unfortunately, owing to the creeping of the 

 stems upon the ground, the plants became inextricably mixed 

 with one another, and it was impossible to determine from which 

 original seedling any given head of flowers arose, and in conse- 

 quence the exact percentage of female plants could not be deter- 

 mined. Out of about 322 stalks of flowers, however, 11 were 

 female. 



Though all derived from one original stock, these seedlings 

 varied considerably among themselves, more especially in the 

 colour of the flowers. Every gradation occurred from heads with 

 deep rose coloured flowers and reddish-brown bracts, to heads 

 with snow-white flowers and green bracts. The parent plants 

 had pale pink flowers of the usual type. 



Six heads of female flowers, growing, all but three, at some 

 distance apart, and representing four plants, so far as could be 

 found, were marked, and every flower examined, throughout their 

 flowering season, just as was done with the hermaphrodites in 

 1891. The experiment gave a similar result. Many abnormal 

 (i.e. staminate) flowers appeared, but the season had apparently 

 no influence. It seemed possible that the weather had some 

 effect, but this could not be satisfactorily made out. 



On the hermaphrodite plants, more female flowers than inter- 

 mediate forms occurred, and so also here, more hermaphrodites 

 occurred than intermediate forms. The corolla again seemed to 

 vary with the number of stamens, the hermaphrodite flowers 

 being the largest and the female smallest, the flowers with 1, 2, 

 or 8 stamens intermediate in size. 



Several wild female plants from Abington (Cambs.) were 

 transplanted to the same bed, and observed with the rest. They 

 varied in a very similar way. 



Considerable difference, in the size of the flower and in other 

 points, was observed between the various female plants. The 

 wild females had fairly large flowers with the aborted stamens 

 represented by small dark-coloured bodies in the throat. The 

 cultivated seedlings varied gTeatly in these points. One almost 



* I. c, table on p. 350, batch A. 



