Chap. I. SDMMAEY ON PRIMULA. 47 



numbers), would show the proportional number of cap- 

 sules due to the two methods of fertilisation ; and the 

 number 56 would appear in the left-hand column of 

 Table 12, and in my other tables. With respect 

 to the average number of seeds per capsule hardly 

 anything need be said : supposing that the legiti- 

 mately fertilised capsules contained, on an average, 

 50 seeds, and the illegitimately fertilised capsules 

 25 seeds ; then as 50 is to 25 so is 100 to 50 ; and 

 the latter number would appear in the right-hand 

 column. 



It is impossible to look at the above table and doubt 

 that the legitimate unions between the two forms of the 

 above nine species of Primula are much more fertile 

 than the illegitimate unions; although in the latter 

 case pollen was always taken from a distinct plant of 

 the same form. There is, however, no close corre- 

 spondence in the two rows of figures, which give, 

 according to the two standards, the difference of fer- 

 tility between the legitimate and illegitimate unions. 

 Thus all the flowers of P. Sinensis which were illegiti- 

 mately fertilised by Hildebrand produced capsules ; 

 but these contained only 42 per cent, of the number 

 of seeds yielded by the legitimately fertilised capsules. 

 So again, 95 per cent, of the illegitimately fertilised 

 flowers of P. SHikimensis produced capsules ; but these 

 contained only 31 per cent, of the number of seeds in 

 the legitimate capsules. On the other hand, with 

 P. elatior only 27 per cent, of the illegitimately fer- 

 tilised flowers yielded capsules ; but these contained 

 nearly 75 per cent, of the legitimate number of seeds. 

 It appears that the setting of the flowers, that is, the 

 production of capsules whether good or bad, is not 

 so much influenced by legitimate and illegitimate fer- 

 tilisation as is the number of seeds which the capsulea 



