The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species by Charles Darwin
page 38 of 371 (10%)
page 38 of 371 (10%)
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Short-styled by pollen of long-styled. Legitimate union:
8 : 7 : 75 : 48 : 65.0. Short-styled by own-form pollen. Illegitimate union : 18 : 7 : 43 : 5 : 18.8 (This average is perhaps rather too low). SUMMARY: The two legitimate unions together : 20 : 18 : 77 : 47 : 66.0. The two illegitimate unions together : 39 : 21 : 66 : 5 : 35.5 (This average is perhaps rather too low). We may infer from this table that the fertility of the two legitimate unions taken together is to that of the two illegitimate unions together, as judged by the proportional number of flowers which when fertilised in the two methods yielded capsules, as 100 to 60. If we judge by the average number of seeds per capsule produced by the two kinds of unions, the ratio is as 100 to 54; but this latter figure is perhaps rather too low. It is surprising how rarely insects can be seen during the day visiting the flowers, but I have occasionally observed small kinds of bees at work; I suppose, therefore, that they are commonly fertilised by nocturnal Lepidoptera. The long-styled plants when protected from insects yield a considerable number of capsules, and they thus differ remarkably from the same form of the cowslip, which is quite sterile under the same circumstances. Twenty-three spontaneously self-fertilised capsules from this form contained, on an average, 19.2 seeds. The short-styled plants produced fewer spontaneously self-fertilised capsules, and fourteen of them contained only 6.2 seeds per capsule. The self-fertilisation of both forms was probably aided by Thrips, which abounded within the flowers; but these minute insects |
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