When several of the seedlings were an inch and a half in
height, there was no marked difference between the two lots. But even at
this early age the leaves of the self-fertilised seedlings were smaller
and of not so bright a green as those of the crossed seedlings. The pots
were kept in the greenhouse, and as the plants on the following spring
(1868) looked unhealthy and had grown but little, they were plunged,
still in their pots, into the open ground. The plants all suffered much
from the sudden change, especially the self-fertilised, and two of the
latter died. The remainder were measured, and I give the measurements in
Table 5/58, because I have not seen in any other species so great a
difference between the crossed and self-fertilised seedlings at so early
an age.
TABLE 5/58. Sarothamnus scoparius (very young plants).
Heights of plants measured in inches.
Column 1: Number (Name) of Pot.
Column 2: Crossed Plants.
Column 3: Self-fertilised Plants.
Pot 1 : 4 4/8 : 2 4/8.
Pot 1 : 6 : 1 4/8.
Pot 1 : 2 : 1.
Pot 2 : 2 : 1 4/8.
Pot 2 : 2 4/8 : 1.
Pot 2 : 0 4/8 : 0 4/8.
Total : 17.5 : 8.0.
The six crossed plants here average 2.91, and the six self-fertilised
1.33 inches in height; so that the former were more than twice as high
as the latter, or as 100 to 46.
In the spring of the succeeding year (1869) the three crossed plants in
Pot 1 had all grown to nearly a foot in height, and they had smothered
the three little self-fertilised plants so completely that two were
dead; and the third, only an inch and a half in height, was dying.
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