188 ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPRING OF Chap. V. 



CHAPTER V. 



Illeoitimate Opfspking op Hetebosttled Plants. 



Illegitimate offspring from all three forms of Lythrum salicaria^Their 

 dwarfed stature and sterility, some utterly barren, some fertile — 

 Oxalia, transmission of form to the legitimate and illegitimate 

 seedlings — Primula Sinensis, illegitimate offspring in some degree 

 dwarfed and infertile— Equal-styled varieties of P. Sinensis, auri- 

 cula, farinosa, and elatior^ — P. vulgaris, red-flowered variety, illegi- 

 timate seedlings sterile— P. veris, illegitimate plants raised during 

 several successive generations, their dwarfed stature and sterility — 

 Equal-styled varieties of P. veris — Transmission of form by Pul- 

 monaria and Polygonum — Concluding remarks — Close parallelism 

 between illegitimate fertilisation and hybridism. 



We have hitherto treated of the fertility of the flowers 

 of heterostyled plants, when legitimately and illegiti- 

 mately fertilised. The present chapter will be devoted 

 to the character of their offspring or seedlings. Those 

 raised from legitimately fertilised seeds will be here 

 called legitimate seedlings or plants, and those from 

 illegitimately fertilised seeds, illegitimate seedlings or 

 "plants. They differ chiefly in their degree of fertility, 

 and in their powers of growth or vigour. I will begin 

 with trimorphic plants, and I must remind the reader 

 that each of the three forms can be fertilised in six 

 different ways ; so that all three together can be ferti- 

 lised in eighteen different ways. For instance, a 

 long-styled form can be fertilised legitimately by the 

 longest stamens of the mid-styled and short-styled 

 forms, and illegitimately by its own-form mid-length 

 and shortest stamens, also by the mid-length stamens 

 of the mid-styled and by the shortest stamens of the 

 short-styled form ; so that the long-styled can be ferti- 



