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
The seeds contained in 8 capsules from the Chelsea-crossed plants
weighed 1.1 grains.
The seeds contained in 8 capsules from the Intercrossed plants weighed
0.51 grains.
The seeds contained in 8 capsules from the Self-fertilised plants
weighed 0.33 grains.
If we combine the number of capsules produced together with the average
weight of contained seeds, we get the following extraordinary ratios:
Weight of seed produced by the same number of Chelsea-crossed and
intercrossed plants as 100 to 4.
Weight of seed produced by the same number of Chelsea-crossed and
self-fertilised plants as 100 to 3.
Weight of seeds produced by the same number of intercrossed and
self-fertilised plants as 100 to 73.
It is also a remarkable fact that the Chelsea-crossed plants exceeded
the two other lots in hardiness, as greatly as they did in height,
luxuriance, and fertility. In the early autumn most of the pots were
bedded out in the open ground; and this always injures plants which have
been long kept in a warm greenhouse. All three lots consequently
suffered greatly, but the Chelsea-crossed plants much less than the
other two lots. On the 3rd of October the Chelsea-crossed plants began
to flower again, and continued to do so for some time; whilst not a
single flower was produced by the plants of the other two lots, the
stems of which were cut almost down to the ground and seemed half dead.
Early in December there was a sharp frost, and the stems of
Chelsea-crossed were now cut down; but on the 23rd of December they
began to shoot up again from the roots, whilst all the plants of the
other two lots were quite dead.
Although several of the self-fertilised seeds, from which the plants in
the right hand column in Table 3/20 were raised, germinated (and were of
course rejected) before any of those of the other two lots, yet in only
one of the ten pots did a self-fertilised plant flower before the
Chelsea-crossed or the intercrossed plants growing in the same pots. The
plants of these two latter lots flowered at the same time, though the
Chelsea-crossed grew so much taller and more vigorously than the
intercrossed.
As already stated, the flowers of the plants originally raised from the
Chelsea seeds were yellow; and it deserves notice that every one of the
twenty-eight seedlings raised from the tall white variety fertilised,
without being castrated, with pollen from the Chelsea plants, produced
yellow flowers; and this shows how prepotent this colour, which is the
natural one of the species, is over the white colour.
THE EFFECTS ON THE OFFSPRING OF INTERCROSSING FLOWERS ON THE SAME PLANT,
INSTEAD OF CROSSING DISTINCT INDIVIDUALS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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