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
Illegitimate offspring from all three forms of Lythrum salicaria.
Their dwarfed stature and sterility, some utterly barren, some fertile.
Oxalis, transmission of form to the legitimate and illegitimate seedlings.
Primula Sinensis, Illegitimate offspring in some degree dwarfed and infertile.
Equal-styled varieties of P. Sinensis, auricula, farinosa, and elatior.
P. vulgaris, red-flowered variety, Illegitimate seedlings sterile.
P. veris, Illegitimate plants raised during several successive generations,
their dwarfed stature and sterility.
Equal-styled varieties of P. veris.
Transmission of form by Pulmonaria and Polygonum.
Concluding remarks.
Close parallelism between illegitimate fertilisation and hybridism.
We have hitherto treated of the fertility of the flowers of heterostyled plants,
when legitimately and illegitimately fertilised. The present chapter will be
devoted to the character of their offspring or seedlings. Those raised from
legitimately fertilised seeds will be here called LEGITIMATE SEEDLINGS or
PLANTS, and those from illegitimately fertilised seeds, ILLEGITIMATE SEEDLINGS
or PLANTS. They differ chiefly in their degree of fertility, and in their powers
of growth or vigour. I will begin with trimorphic plants, and I must remind the
reader that each of the three forms can be fertilised in six different ways; so
that all three together can be fertilised in eighteen different ways. For
instance, a long-styled form can be fertilised legitimately by the longest
stamens of the mid-styled and short-styled forms, and illegitimately by its own-
form and mid-length and shortest stamens, also by the mid-length stamens of the
mid-styled and by the shortest stamens of the short-styled form; so that the
long-styled can be fertilised legitimately in two ways and illegitimately in
four ways. The same holds good with respect to the mid-styled and short-styled
forms. Therefore with trimorphic species six of the eighteen unions yield
legitimate offspring, and twelve yield illegitimate offspring.
I will give the results of my experiments in detail, partly because the
observations are extremely troublesome, and will not probably soon be repeated--
thus, I was compelled to count under the microscope above 20,000 seeds of
Lythrum salicaria--but chiefly because light is thus indirectly thrown on the
important subject of hybridism.
Lythrum salicaria.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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