74 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



My resolve proved a wise one ; for since the appearance 

 of my book, a surprising number of papers and separate 

 works on the fertilisation of all kinds of flowers have ap- 

 peared : and these are far better done than I could possibly 

 have effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so long 

 overlooked, are now fully recognised many years after his 

 death. 



During the same year I published in the ' Journal of the 

 Linnean Society ' a paper " On the Two Forms, or Dimor- 

 phic Condition of Primula," and during the next five years, 

 five other papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants. I do 

 not think anything in my scientific life has given me so much 

 satisfaction as making out the meaning of the structure of 

 these plants. I had noticed in 1838 or 1839 tne dimorphism 

 of Linam flavum, and had at first thought that it was merely 

 a case of unmeaning variability. But on examining the com- 

 mon species of Primula I found that the two forms were much 

 too regular and constant to be thus viewed. I therefore be- 

 came almost convinced that the common cowslip and prim- 

 rose were on the high road to become dioecious ; — that the 

 short pistil in the one form, and the short stamens in the 

 other form were tending towards abortion. The plants were 

 therefore subjected under this point of view to trial ; but as 

 soon as the flowers with short pistils fertilised with pollen 

 from the short stamens, were found to yield more seeds than 

 any other of the four possible unions, the abortion- theory was 

 knocked on the head. After some additional experiment, it 

 became evident that the two forms, though both were perfect 

 hermaphrodites, bore almost the same relation to one another 

 as do the two sexes of an ordinary animal. With Lythrum 

 we have the still more wonderful case of three forms standing 

 in a similar relation to one another. I afterwards found that 

 the offspring from the union of two plants belonging to the 

 same forms presented a close and curious analogy with hy- 

 brids from the union of two distinct species. 



In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on ' Climb- 

 ing Plants,' and sent it to the Linnean Society. The writing 



