The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species by Charles Darwin
page 56 of 371 (15%)
page 56 of 371 (15%)
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Besides the genera Primula and Hottonia, Androsace (vel Gregoria, vel Aretia) vitalliana is heterostyled. Mr. Scott fertilised with their own pollen 21 flowers on three short-styled plants in the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens, and not one yielded a single seed; but eight of them which were fertilised with pollen from one of the other plants of the same form, set two empty capsules. (1/19. See also Treviranus in 'Botanische Zeitung' 1863 page 6 on this plant being dimorphic.) He was able to examine only dried specimens of the long-styled forms. But the evidence seems sufficient to leave hardly a doubt that Androsace is heterostyled. Fritz Muller sent me from South Brazil dried flowers of a Statice which he believed to be heterostyled. In the one form the pistil was considerably longer and the stamens slightly shorter than the corresponding organs in the other form. But as in the shorter-styled form the stigmas reached up to the anthers of the same flower, and as I could not detect in the dried specimens of the two forms any difference in their stigmas, or in the size of their pollen-grains, I dare not rank this plant as heterostyled. From statements made by Vaucher I was led to think that Soldanella alpina was heterostyled, but it is impossible that Kerner, who has closely studied this plant, could have overlooked the fact. So again from other statements it appeared probable that Pyrola might be heterostyled, but H. Muller examined for me two species in North Germany, and found this not to be the case. CHAPTER II. HYBRID PRIMULAS. The oxlip a hybrid naturally produced between Primula veris and vulgaris. The differences in structure and function between the two parent-species. |
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