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
But to have ascertained the productiveness of the three lots of plants,
it would have been necessary to know how many capsules were produced by
the same number of plants. The three long rows, however, were not of
quite equal lengths, and the plants were much crowded, so that it would
have been extremely difficult to have ascertained how many capsules were
produced by them, even if I had been willing to undertake so laborious a
task as to collect and count all the capsules. But this was feasible
with the plants grown in pots in the greenhouse; and although these were
much less fertile than those growing out of doors, their relative
fertility appeared, after carefully observing them, to be the same. The
nineteen plants of the English-crossed stock in the pots produced
altogether 240 capsules; the intercrossed plants (calculated as
nineteen) produced 137.22 capsules; and the nineteen self-fertilised
plants, 152 capsules. Now, knowing the number of seeds contained in
forty-five capsules of each lot, it is easy to calculate the relative
numbers of seeds produced by an equal number of the plants of the three
lots.
Number of seeds produced by an equal number of naturally-fertilised
plants:--
Plants of English-crossed and self-fertilised parentage, as 100 to 40
seeds.
Plants of English-crossed and intercrossed parentage, as 100 to 45
seeds.
Plants of intercrossed and self-fertilised parentage, as 100 to 89
seeds.
The superiority in productiveness of the intercrossed plants (that is,
the product of a cross between the grandchildren of the plants which
grew in Brazil) over the self-fertilised, small as it is, is wholly due
to the larger average number of seeds contained in the capsules; for the
intercrossed plants produced fewer capsules in the greenhouse than did
the self-fertilised plants. The great superiority in productiveness of
the English-crossed over the self-fertilised plants is shown by the
larger number of capsules produced, the larger average number of
contained seeds, and the smaller number of empty capsules. As the
English-crossed and intercrossed plants were the offspring of crosses in
every previous generation (as must have been the case from the flowers
being sterile with their own pollen), we may conclude that the great
superiority in productiveness of the English-crossed over the
intercrossed plants is due to the two parents of the former having been
long subjected to different conditions.
The English-crossed plants, though so superior in productiveness, were,
as we have seen, decidedly inferior in height and weight to the
self-fertilised, and only equal to, or hardly superior to, the
intercrossed plants. Therefore, the whole advantage of a cross with a
distinct stock is here confined to productiveness, and I have met with
no similar case.
8. RESEDACEAE.--Reseda lutea.
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