5 seeds. The average height of the two
crossed plants of the two generations taken together was 35.5, and that
of the three self-fertilised plants of the same two generations 30.5; or
as 100 to 86. (5/3. We here see that both Lupinus luteus and pilosus
seed freely when insects are excluded; but Mr. Swale, of Christchurch,
in New Zealand, informs me 'Gardeners' Chronicle' 1858 page 828, that
the garden varieties of the lupine are not there visited by any bees,
and that they seed less freely than any other introduced leguminous
plant, with the exception of red clover. He adds "I have, for amusement,
during the summer, released the stamens with a pin, and a pod of seed
has always rewarded me for my trouble, the adjoining flowers not so
served having all proved blind." I do not know to what species this
statement refers.)
Phaseolus multiflorus.
This plant, the scarlet-runner of English gardeners and the Phaseolus
coccineus of Lamarck, originally came from Mexico, as I am informed by
Mr. Bentham. The flowers are so constructed that hive and humble-bees,
which visit them incessantly, almost always alight on the left
wing-petal, as they can best suck the nectar from this side. Their
weight and movements depress the petal, and this causes the stigma to
protrude from the spirally-wound keel, and a brush of hairs round the
stigma pushes out the pollen before it. The pollen adheres to the head
or proboscis of the bee which is at work, and is thus placed either on
the stigma of the same flower, or is carried to another flower.
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