The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable KingdomDarwin, Charles
Science
The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom
Darwin, Charles
Fertilization of plants; Plants -- Variation; Pollination
In considering the several cases above given of complete or almost
complete self-sterility, we are first struck with their wide
distribution throughout the vegetable kingdom. Their number is not at
present large, for they can be discovered only by protecting plants from
insects and then fertilising them with pollen from another plant of the
same species and with their own pollen; and the latter must be proved to
be in an efficient state by other trials. Unless all this be done, it is
impossible to know whether their self-sterility may not be due to the
male or female reproductive organs, or to both, having been affected by
changed conditions of life. As in the course of my experiments I have
found three new cases, and as Fritz Muller has observed indications of
several others, it is probable that they will hereafter be proved to be
far from rare. (9/13. Mr. Wilder, the editor of a horticultural journal
in the United States quoted in ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle’ 1868 page 1286,
states that Lilium auratum, Impatiens pallida and fulva, and Forsythia
viridissima, cannot be fertilised with their own pollen.)
As with plants of the same species and parentage, some individuals are
self-sterile and others self-fertile, of which fact Reseda odorata
offers the most striking instances, it is not at all surprising that
species of the same genus differ in this same manner. Thus Verbascum
phoeniceum and nigrum are self-sterile, whilst V. thapsus and lychnitis
are quite self-fertile, as I know by trial. There is the same difference
between some of the species of Papaver, Corydalis, and of other genera.
Nevertheless, the tendency to self-sterility certainly runs to a certain
extent in groups, as we see in the genus Passiflora, and with the
Vandeae amongst Orchids.
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