Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom by Charles Darwin
page 38 of 636 (05%)
page 38 of 636 (05%)
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Pot 2 : 88 : 68 4/8. Pot 2 : 87 : 60 4/8. Pot 3 : 77 : 57. Plants crowded; the tallest one measured on each side. Total : 516 : 394. The average height of the six crossed plants is here 86 inches, whilst that of the six self-fertilised plants is only 65.66 inches, so that the crossed plants are to the self-fertilised in height as 100 to 76. It should be observed that this difference is not due to a few of the crossed plants being extremely tall, or to a few of the self-fertilised being extremely short, but to all the crossed plants attaining a greater height than their antagonists. The three pairs in Pot 1 were measured at two earlier periods, and the difference was sometimes greater and sometimes less than that at the final measuring. But it is an interesting fact, of which I have seen several other instances, that one of the self-fertilised plants, when nearly a foot in height, was half an inch taller than the crossed plant; and again, when two feet high, it was 1 3/8 of an inch taller, but during the ten subsequent days the crossed plant began to gain on its antagonist, and ever afterward asserted its supremacy, until it exceeded its self-fertilised opponent by 16 inches. The five crossed plants in Pots 1 and 2 were covered with a net, and produced 121 capsules; the five self-fertilised plants produced eighty-four capsules, so that the numbers of capsules were as 100 to 69. Of the 121 capsules on the crossed plants sixty-five were the product of |
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