It is almost certain that the plants
which produced these seeds had grown under very different conditions to
those to which my self-fertilised and crossed plants had been subjected;
and they were in no degree related. The above twelve flowers thus
crossed all produced capsules, but these contained the low average of
37.41 seeds per capsule, with a maximum in one of sixty-four seeds. It
is surprising that this cross with a fresh stock did not give a much
higher average number of seeds; for, as we shall immediately see, the
plants raised from these seeds, which may be called the LONDON-CROSSED,
benefited greatly by the cross, both in growth and fertility.
The above three lots of seeds were allowed to germinate on bare sand.
Many of the London-crossed germinated before the others, and were
rejected; and many of the intercrossed later than those of the other two
lots. The seeds after thus germinating were planted in ten pots, made
tripartite by superficial divisions; but when only two kinds of seeds
germinated at the same time, they were planted on the opposite sides of
other pots; and this is indicated by blank spaces in one of the three
columns in Table 4/47. A 0 in the table signifies that the seedling died
before it was measured; and a + signifies that the plant did not produce
a flower-stem, and therefore was not measured. It deserves notice that
no less than eight out of the eighteen self-fertilised plants either
died or did not flower; whereas only three out of the eighteen
intercrossed, and four out of the twenty London-crossed plants, were in
this predicament.
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