364 THE SELF-FERTILIZATION OF PLANTS. 



ii, Animals and Plants, &c), "I have received (1866) 

 some interesting details from Mr. Robinson Munro. 

 These plants, including one in England, have already- 

 been mentioned, were inveterately sterile, and Mr. 

 Munro informs me of several others, which after 

 repeated trials, during many years, have been found 

 in the same predicament. At some other places (!), 

 however, this species fruits readily, when fertilized 

 with its own pollen." 



At these " some other places," it has found the, 

 chemical elements, and other conditions of life, which 

 are essential to the development of those of the parts 

 whose loss, or reduction, produced the sterility of the 

 individuals, found in the bad "predicament." Conse- 

 quently, the development of these parts, with that of 

 the others, secures the fertility, which attains its maxi- 

 mum, only when a full return is made to the original, 

 perfect type. 



In different habitats, different plants receive unlike 

 quantities of the gases; liquids, and solids, necessary to 

 their development. The proportion, therefore, of a 

 Plant varies, according to the place to which it is 

 fixed. The soil, in such cases, possesses, generally, 

 some ingredient which is favorable to the development 

 of some one part. In another place, to which the 

 plant may be transplanted, there may be an abundance 

 of the matter required for a certain other part, or 

 for a certain class of its tissues. When so trans- 

 planted, it not only derives a benefit, from the devel- 

 opment of these latter portions of its organization, but 

 the high development of the other part, may be sus- 

 tained for a time, through the capacity for assimilating 



