DIFFERENTIATION IN FLOWERS, 



i37 



other plant growing within a distance of two 

 or three feet. The crossed and self-fertilized 

 seedlings raised from their respective seeds 

 produced flower stems in number as 100 to 

 47, and in average height as 1 00 to 70. There- 

 fore the cross between these two plants was 

 highly beneficial; but how could their essential 

 organs have been differentiated by exposure 

 to different conditions ? " The reply which 

 Darwin makes is, "Seeds are often widely dis- 

 persed by natural means, and one of the above 

 two plants, or one of their ancestors (!), may 

 have come from a distance, from a more shady 

 or sunny, dry or moist, place ; or from a differ- 

 ent kind of soil, containing other organic or 

 inorganic matter." Darwin need not have 

 travelled so far afield for an explanation of the 

 results he met with. His own net supplied 

 what he went so far afield to seek. The pollen 

 of the self-fertilized was from a " more shady 

 situation," i.e., from the pollen of a flower ma- 

 tured under his net ; and the pollen of the 

 cross-fertilized was from the "more sunny situ- 

 ation," being grown uncovered. The so-called 

 differentiation Darwin had himself created in 

 these two closely adjoining flowers. All that 

 this experiment showed was that pollen natu- 

 rally grown was prepotent over that which 

 was grown under artificial protection. It was 

 no matter of ancestry ; nor was it matter of 

 differentiation (in Darwin's use of the term) 

 in the crossed flowers, but of deterioration under 

 the net, of the pollen of the self-fertilized ones. 



On a similar principle Darwin's experi- 

 ments throughout were conducted. Now, not 



only is there no evidence for 

 No evidence hi s theory of the necessity of 

 differentiation, differentiation or difference of 



constitution in flowers of the 

 same species for their complete fertility, but, 

 in our opinion, his theory is fundamentally 

 at variance with the arrangements and ope- 

 rations of Nature. If Darwin were right in 

 his assumption "that the disadvantages of self- 

 fertilization depend on the two parents, where 

 stamens and pistils are combined in the same 

 flower, having a closely similar constitution," 

 all flowers which had both stamens and pistils 

 in the same corolla (and consequently the vast 

 majority of flowers) would, for their primal 

 purpose — theproductionofseed — be wrongly, 



or in Darwin's language, "disadvantageously," 

 constituted. Nature would have done her best 

 in that case to minimise, or in a measure to 

 thwart, and even to defeat in many cases and in 

 many seasons when insects were scarce, her 

 own special purposes. Elsewhere Darwin says, 

 "We should always keep in mind the obvious 

 fact that the production of seed is the chief end 

 of fertilization, and that the end can be gained 

 by plants which have stamens and pistils in the 

 same flower with incomparably greater certain- 

 ty by self-fertilization than by a cross between 

 two distinct flowers or plants" (ib., p. 3). In 

 our opinion the less the differentiation between 

 stamens and pistils, the greater the ordinary 

 fertility of the flower. It is similarity, in our 

 opinion, not differentiation of constitution of 

 a species which conduces to complete fertility. 

 Our opinion is grounded on the fact that the 

 greater the differentiation, as between distinct 

 though closely allied species, the greater is the 

 sterility when crossed. Even Darwin allows 

 that the differentiation must be limited. He 

 says, " The veil of secrecy is as yet far from 

 lifted, nor will it be, until we can say why it 

 is beneficial that the reproductive elements 

 should be differentiated to a certain extent, 

 and why, if the differentiation be carried still 

 further, injury follows " (ib., p. 460). It was 

 from the invalid method with his net that 

 Darwin concluded that " differentiation to a 

 certain extent was beneficial." Nature, on the 

 other hand, teaches us in many instances, as 

 distinctly as she possibly can, that similarity 

 of constitution when the flowers are healthy, 

 is productive of complete fertility. 



This is seen primarily in inconspicuous 

 flowers. All plants with inconspicuous flowers, 

 which are consequently deno- 

 te ^ff^f j minated " weeds," and which, 

 self-fertilized. r ' ' 



from their marvellous and un- 

 rivalled fertility, are the pests of farmer and 

 gardener, are allowed by all to be self-fertilized. 

 There is nothing in the growth of such 

 " weeds " that can cause any differentiation 

 between their stamens and pistils. They grow 

 with the same surroundings and the same at- 

 mospheric conditions, and with the same sap 

 circulating in their systems. Similarity, not 

 differentiation, can alone be predicated of the 

 constitution of the reproductive elements in 



