232 ILLEGITIMATE OFFSPEING OF Chap. V. 



legitimate plants sometimes yield. But this Mgli ayer- 

 age was almost certainly false ; and I mention the case 

 for the sake of showing the difficulty of arriving at a 

 fair result ; for this average mainly depended on two 

 capsules containing the extraordinary numbers of 75 

 and 56 seeds ; these seeds, however, though I felt 

 bound to count them, were so poor that, judging from 

 trials made in other cases, I do not suppose that one 

 would have germinated ; and therefore they ought not 

 to have been included. Lastly, 20 flowers were legiti- 

 mately fertilised with pollen from a legitimate plant, 

 and this increased their fertility; for they produced 

 10 capsules. Yet this is but a very small proportion 

 for a legitimate union. 



There can, therefore, be no doubt that these five 

 long-styled plants and the one short-styled plant of 

 the first illegitimate generation were extremely sterile. 

 Their sterility was shown, as in the case of hybrids, 

 in another way, namely, by their flowering profusely, 

 and especially by the long endurance of the flowers. 

 For instance, I fertilised many flowers on these plants, 

 and fifteen days afterwards (viz. on March 22nd) I 

 fertilised numerous long-styled and short-styled flowers 

 on common cowslips growing close by. These latter 

 flowers, on April 8th, were withered, whilst most of the 

 illegitimate flowers remained quite fresh for several 

 days subsequently ; so that some of these illegitimate 

 plants, after being fertilised, remained in full bloom 

 for above a. month. 



We will now turn to the fertility of the 53 illegiti- 

 mate long-styled grandchildren, descended from the 

 long-styled plant which was first fertilised with its 

 own pollen. The pollen in two of these plants included 

 a multitude of small and shrivelled grains. Never- 

 theless they were not very sterile ; for 25 flowers, fer- 



