Early in December there was a sharp frost, and the stems of
Chelsea-crossed were now cut down; but on the 23rd of December they
began to shoot up again from the roots, whilst all the plants of the
other two lots were quite dead.
Although several of the self-fertilised seeds, from which the plants in
the right hand column in Table 3/20 were raised, germinated (and were of
course rejected) before any of those of the other two lots, yet in only
one of the ten pots did a self-fertilised plant flower before the
Chelsea-crossed or the intercrossed plants growing in the same pots. The
plants of these two latter lots flowered at the same time, though the
Chelsea-crossed grew so much taller and more vigorously than the
intercrossed.
As already stated, the flowers of the plants originally raised from the
Chelsea seeds were yellow; and it deserves notice that every one of the
twenty-eight seedlings raised from the tall white variety fertilised,
without being castrated, with pollen from the Chelsea plants, produced
yellow flowers; and this shows how prepotent this colour, which is the
natural one of the species, is over the white colour.
THE EFFECTS ON THE OFFSPRING OF INTERCROSSING FLOWERS ON THE SAME PLANT,
INSTEAD OF CROSSING DISTINCT INDIVIDUALS.
In all the foregoing experiments the crossed plants were the product of
a cross between distinct plants. I now selected a very vigorous plant in
Table 3/20, raised by fertilising a plant of the eighth self-fertilised
generation with pollen from the Chelsea stock.
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