164 RETEEOSTYLED TRIMORPHIC PLANTS. Chap. IV. 



the pollen from a single anther is far more than suffi- 

 cient to fertilise fully a stigma; since, in this as with 

 so many other plants, more than twelve times as much 

 of each kind of pollen is produced as is necessary to 

 ensure the full fei-tilisation of each form. From the 

 dusted condition of the bodies of the bees which I 

 caught on the flowers, it is probable that pollen of 

 various kinds is often deposited on all three stigmas; 

 but from the facts already given with respect to the 

 two forms of Primula, there can hardly be a doubt 

 that pollen from the stamens of corresponding length 

 placed on a stigma would be prepotent over any other 

 kind of pollen and obliterate its effects, — even if the 

 latter had been placed on the stigma some hours pre- 

 viously. 



Finally, it has now been shown that Lythrum sali- 

 caria presents the extraordinary ease of the same 

 species bearing three females, different in structure and 

 function, and three or even five sets (if minor differ- 

 ences are considered) of males; each set consisting of 

 half-a-dozen, which likewise differ from one another in 

 structure and function. 



Lythrum Grcefferi. — ^I have examined numerous dried 

 flowers of this species, each from a separate plant, sent me 

 from Kew. Like L. salicaria, it is trimorphic, and the 

 three forms apparently occur in about equal numbers. In 

 the long-styled form the pistil projects about one-third of 

 the length of the calyx beyond its mouth, and is therefore 

 relatively much shorter than in L. salicaria; the globose 

 and hirsute stigma is larger than that of the other two 

 forms; the six mid-length stamens, which are graduated 

 in length, have their anthers standing close above and close 

 beneath the mouth of the calyx ; the six shortest stamens 

 rise rather above the middle of the calyx. In the mid- 

 styled form the stigma projects just above the mouth of 

 the calyx, and stands almost on a level with the mid-length 

 stamens of the long- and short-styled forms ; its own long- 



