The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same SpeciesDarwin, Charles
Science
The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species
Darwin, Charles
Fertilization of plants; Heterostylism; Plant physiology; Plants -- Variation; Pollination
We here see that thirty-six flowers on the three forms legitimately fertilised
yielded 30 capsules, these containing on an average 58.36 seeds. Ninety-five
flowers illegitimately fertilised yielded 12 capsules, containing on an average
28.58 seeds. Therefore the fertility of the six legitimate to that of the twelve
illegitimate unions, as judged by the proportion of flowers which yielded
capsules, is as 100 to 15, and judged by the average number of seeds per capsule
as 100 to 49. This plant, in comparison with the two South American species
previously described, produces many more seeds, and the illegitimately
fertilised flowers are not quite so sterile.
Oxalis rosea.
Hildebrand possessed in a living state only the long-styled form of this
trimorphic Chilian species. (4/14. ‘Monatsber. der Akad. der Wiss. Berlin’ 1866
page 372.) The pollen-grains from the two sets of anthers differ in diameter as
9 to 7.5, or as 100 to 83. He has further shown that there is an analogous
difference between the grains from the two sets of anthers of the same flower in
five other species of Oxalis, besides those already described. The present
species differs remarkably from the long-styled form of the three species
previously experimented on, in a much larger proportion of the flowers setting
capsules when fertilised with their own-form pollen. Hildebrand fertilised 60
flowers with pollen from the mid-length stamens (of either the same or another
flower), and they yielded no less than 55 capsules, or 92 per cent. These
capsules contained on an average 5.62 seeds; but we have no means of judging how
near an approach this average makes to that from flowers legitimately
fertilised. He also fertilised 45 flowers with pollen from the shortest stamens,
and these yielded only 17 capsules, or 31 per cent, containing on an average
only 2.65 seeds. We thus see that about thrice as many flowers, when fertilised
with pollen from the mid-length stamens, produced capsules, and these contained
twice as many seeds, as did the flowers fertilised with pollen from the shortest
stamens. It thus appears (and we find some evidence of the same fact with O.
speciosa), that the same rule holds good with Oxalis as with Lythrum salicaria;
namely, that in any two unions, the greater the inequality in length between the
pistils and stamens, or, which is the same thing, the greater the distance of
the stigma from the anthers, the pollen of which is used for fertilisation, the
less fertile is the union,--whether judged by the proportion of flowers which
set capsules, or by the average number of seeds per capsule. The rule cannot be
explained in this case any more than in that of Lythrum, by supposing that
wherever there is greater liability to self-fertilisation, this is checked by
the union being rendered more sterile; for exactly the reverse occurs, the
liability to self-fertilisation being greatest in the unions between the pistils
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