I infer that this is the case, firstly from
humble-bees often visiting the flowers, and from the quantity of pollen
left by them on the stigmas of such flowers; and, secondly, from the
plants raised from the same lot of seed varying greatly in the colour of
their flowers, for as we shall hereafter see, this indicates much
intercrossing. (2/3. Verlot says 'Sur la Production des Vari?t?s' 1865
page 66, that certain varieties of a closely allied plant, the
Convolvulus tricolor, cannot be kept pure unless grown at a distance
from all other varieties.) It is, therefore, remarkable that the plants
raised by me from flowers which were, in all probability,
self-fertilised for the first time after many generations of crossing,
should have been so markedly inferior in height to the intercrossed
plants as they were, namely, as 76 to 100. As the plants which were
self-fertilised in each succeeding generation necessarily became much
more closely interbred in the later than in the earlier generations, it
might have been expected that the difference in height between them and
the crossed plants would have gone on increasing; but, so far is this
from being the case, that the difference between the two sets of plants
in the seventh, eighth, and ninth generations taken together is less
than in the first and second generations together. When, however, we
remember that the self-fertilised and crossed plants are all descended
from the same mother-plant, that many of the crossed plants in each
generation were related, often closely related, and that all were
exposed to the same conditions, which, as we shall hereafter find, is a
very important circumstance, it is not at all surprising that the
difference between them should have somewhat decreased in the later
generations.
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