Short-styled cowslips : 100 : 1585 :: 100 : 430.
Long-styled cowslips : 100 : 1093 :: 100 : 332.

The season was much more favourable this year than the last; the plants also now
grew in good soil, instead of in a shady wood or struggling with other plants in
the open field; consequently the actual produce of seed was considerably larger.
Nevertheless we have the same relative result; for the short-styled plants
produced more seed than the long-styled in nearly the proportion of three to
two; but if we take the fairest standard of comparison, namely, the product of
seeds from an equal number of umbels, the excess is, as in the former case,
nearly as four to three.

Looking to these trials made during two successive years on a large number of
plants, we may safely conclude that the short-styled form is more productive
than the long-styled form, and the same result holds good with some other
species of Primula. Consequently my anticipation that the plants with longer
pistils, rougher stigmas, shorter stamens and smaller pollen-grains, would prove
to be more feminine in nature, is exactly the reverse of the truth.

In 1860 a few umbels on some plants of both the long-styled and short-styled
form, which had been covered by a net, did not produce any seed, though other
umbels on the same plants, artificially fertilised, produced an abundance of
seed; and this fact shows that the mere covering in itself was not injurious.
Accordingly, in 1861, several plants were similarly covered just before they
expanded their flowers; these turned out as follows:--

TABLE 1.5.

Column 1: Plant.