OBSERVATIONS ON THE FERTILISATION OF SAXIFRAOA. 73 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FERTILISATION OF 
CERTAIN SPECIES OF SAXIFRAGA* 
BY JNO. J. OGLE. 
The Saxifrages and their close allies, the Sundews (Drosera), ihQ 
Golden Saxifrage (Chrysosplenium), and the Grass of Parnassus 
(Paraasaia), exliibit some very wonderful phenomena of vegetable 
life. Bennett, Hooker, Darwin, Lubbock, and others have observed 
and described several of the peculiarities that characterise plants 
belonging to the natural order (Saxifragacese), which includes the 
above-named species ; but so far as I am aware no one has yet described 
the way in which the members of the genus Saxifraga are fertilised. 
In the case of the Grass of Parnassus and the Golden Saxifrage their 
arrangement and motions for the prevention of the fertilisation of an 
individual flower by its own pollen have been well described. In the 
cases I am about to describe the same object is achieved by a some¬ 
what different process. 
That some such contrivance is necessary for the health and vigour 
of succeeding individuals of the same species is a well-ascertained 
fact. Plants raised from seed produced by self-fertilised flowers (i.e., 
flowershaving ovaries impregnated by pollen from the same individual 
to which each belongs) are always weaker than those from seed which 
has been set by cross-fertilised flowers (i.e., those the stigmas of 
which were brought into contact with pollen from other plants of 
the same species). On the ground of a similar law in the animal 
world applicable to that highest of animals—man. Scripture and the 
law of the land prohibit the marriage of very near relatives, as the 
children of such marriages would be very weakly, and in many cases 
a burden to themselves and to society. 
But to return to the Saxifrages. It will be necessary to point out 
the structure of the flower of a typical saxifrage and the relations of its 
References to Plate V. 
Fig. 1.—Diagram of flower of a Saxifraga. 
Fig. 2.—Flower of Saxifraga umbrosa, with two petals and stamens near 
them removed. 
Fig. 3.—Ovary of the same in a more advanced state. 
Fig. 4.—Ovary of S. muscoides; learly condition. 
Fig. 5.—The same ; later condition. 
Fig. 6.—Ovary of S. grantdata ; early condition. 
Fig. 7.—The same ; later condition. 
* This paper was read before the Nottingham and District G. II. S. Naturalist’s 
Society in June last. 
