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
Linum grandiflorum, long-styled form utterly sterile with own-form pollen.
Linum perenne, torsion of the pistils in the long-styled form alone.
Homostyled species of Linum.
Pulmonaria officinalis, singular difference in self-fertility between the
English and German long-styled plants.
Pulmonaria angustifolia shown to be a distinct species, long-styled form
completely self-sterile.
Polygonum fagopyrum.
Various other heterostyled genera.
Rubiaceae.
Mitchella repens, fertility of the flowers in pairs.
Houstonia.
Faramea, remarkable difference in the pollen-grains of the two forms; torsion of
the stamens in the short-styled form alone; development not as yet perfect.
The heterostyled structure in the several Rubiaceous genera not due to descent
in common.
(FIGURE 3.4. Linum grandiflorum.
Left: Long-styled form.
Right: Short-styled form.
s, s: stigmas.)
It has long been known that several species of Linum present two forms (3/1.
Treviranus has shown that this is the case in his review of my original paper
‘Botanische Zeitung’ 1863 page 189.), and having observed this fact in L. flavum
more than thirty years ago, I was led, after ascertaining the nature of
heterostylism in Primula, to examine the first species of Linum which I met
with, namely, the beautiful L. grandiflorum. This plant exists under two forms,
occurring in about equal numbers, which differ little in structure, but greatly
in function. The foliage, corolla, stamens, and pollen-grains (the latter
examined both distended with water and dry) are alike in the two forms (Figure
3.4). The difference is confined to the pistil; in the short-styled form the
styles and the stigmas are only about half the length of those in the long-
styled. A more important distinction is, that the five stigmas in the short-
styled form diverge greatly from one another, and pass out between the filaments
of the stamens, and thus lie within the tube of the corolla. In the long-styled
form the elongated stigmas stand nearly upright, and alternate with the anthers.
In this latter form the length of the stigmas varies considerably, their upper
extremities projecting even a little above the anthers, or reaching up only to
about their middle. Nevertheless, there is never the slightest difficulty in
distinguishing between the two forms; for, besides the difference in the
divergence of the stigmas, those of the short-styled form never reach even to
the bases of the anthers. In this form the papillae on the stigmatic surfaces
are shorter, darker-coloured, and more crowded together than in the long-styled
form; but these differences seem due merely to the shortening of the stigma, for
in the varieties of the long-styled form with shorter stigmas, the papillae are
more crowded and darker-coloured than in those with the longer stigmas.
Considering the slight and variable differences between the two forms of this
Linum, it is not surprising that hitherto they have been overlooked.
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