192 ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPRING OF Chap. V. 



plant growing quite isolated, and fertilised by the 

 agency of bees with its own pollen : and it is almost 

 certain, from the relative position of the organs of 

 fructification, that the stigma under these circum- 

 stances would receive pollen from the mid-length 

 stamens. 



All the fifty-six plants in these three lots proved long- 

 styled ; now, if the parent-plants had been legitimately 

 fertilised by pollen from the longest stamens of the 

 mid-styled and short-styled forms, only about one- 

 third of the seedlings would have been long-styled, 

 the other two-thirds being mid-styled and short-styled. 

 In some other trimorphic and dimorphic genera we 

 shall find the same curious fact, namely, that the long- 

 styled form, fertilised illegitimately by its own-form 

 pollen, produces almost exclusively long-styled seed- 

 lings.* 



The eight plants of the first lot were of low stature : 

 three which I measured attained, when fully grown, the 

 heights of only 28, 29, and 47 inches ; whilst legitimate 

 plants growing close by were double this height, one 

 being 77 inches. They all betrayed in their general 

 appearance a weak constitution ; they flowered rather 

 later in the season, and at a later age than ordinary 

 plants. Some did not flower every year ; and one plant, 

 behaving in an unprecedented manner, did not flower 

 until three years old. In the two other lots none of 

 the plants grew quite to their full and proper height, 

 as could at once be seen by comparing them with the 

 adjoining rows of legitimate plants. In several plants 

 in all three lots, many of the anthers were either 

 shrivelled or contained brown and tough, or pulpy 



* Hildebrand first called atteu- of Primula Sinensis; but his le- 

 tion (' Bot. Zeitung,' Jan. 1, 1864, suits were not nearly so uniform 

 p. 5) to this fact in the case as mine. 



