The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom, (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 edition. Excerpt: ...appeared to be due generally to fewer having been produced by the self-fertilised flowers, and to their having been in consequence better nourished. But in the present instance the seeds from the crossed capsules were separated into two lots, --namely, those from the capsules containing over fourteen seeds, and those from capsules containing under fourteen seeds, and the seeds from the more productive capsules were the heavier of the two; so that the above explanation here fails. As pollen is deposited at a very early age on the pistil, generally in contact with the stigma, some flowers whilst still in bud were castrated for my first experiment, and were afterwards fertilised with pollen from a distinct plant. Other flowers were fertilised with their own pollen. From the seeds thus obtained, I succeeded in rearing only three pairs of plants of equal age. The three crossed plants averaged 32-79 inches, and the three self-fertilised 32-08 inches in height; so that they were nearly equal, the crossed having a slight advantage. As the same result followed in all three generations, it would be superfluous to give the heights of all the plants, and I will give only the averages. In order to raise crossed and self-fertilised plants of the second generation, some flowers on the above crossed plants were crossed within twenty-four hours after they had expanded with pollen from a distinct plant; and this interval would probably not be too great to allow of cross-fertilisation being effectual. Some flowers on the self-fertilised plants of the last generation were also selffertilised. From these two lots of seeds, ten crossed and twelve self-fertilised plants of equal ages were raised; and these were measured when fully grown. The crossed averaged 36-98, and..