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Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882

"Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom"

37 inches; or as 100 to 74. The self-fertilised plants were miserable
specimens, whilst the crossed ones looked very vigorous.
ANAGALLIS.
Anagallis collina, var. grandiflora (pale red and blue-flowered
sub-varieties).
Firstly, twenty-five flowers on some plants of the red variety were
crossed with pollen from a distinct plant of the same variety, and
produced ten capsules; thirty-one flowers were fertilised with their own
pollen, and produced eighteen capsules. These plants, which were grown
in pots in the greenhouse, were evidently in a very sterile condition,
and the seeds in both sets of capsules, especially in the
self-fertilised, although numerous, were of so poor a quality that it
was very difficult to determine which were good and which bad. But as
far as I could judge, the crossed capsules contained on an average 6.3
good seeds, with a maximum in one of thirteen; whilst the
self-fertilised contained 6.05 such seeds, with a maximum in one of
fourteen.
Secondly, eleven flowers on the red variety were castrated whilst young
and fertilised with pollen from the blue variety, and this cross
evidently much increased their fertility; for the eleven flowers yielded
seven capsules, which contained on an average twice as many good seeds
as before, namely, 12.7; with a maximum in two of the capsules of
seventeen seeds. Therefore these crossed capsules yielded seeds compared
with those in the foregoing self-fertilised capsules, as 100 to 48.


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