Moreover, many of the plants are now
varying and changing their character, so as to become in a greater or
less degree equal-styled, and in consequence highly self-fertile. From
the analogy of Primula veris there can hardly be a doubt that if a plant
of Primula sinensis could have been procured direct from China, and if
it had been crossed with one of our English varieties, the offspring
would have shown wonderful superiority in height and fertility (though
probably not in the beauty of their flowers) over our ordinary plants.
My first experiment consisted in fertilising many flowers on long-styled
and short-styled plants with their own pollen, and other flowers on the
same plants with pollen taken from distinct plants belonging to the same
form; so that all the unions were illegitimate. There was no uniform and
marked difference in the number of seeds obtained from these two modes
of self-fertilisation, both of which were illegitimate. The two lots of
seeds from both forms were sown thickly on opposite sides of four pots,
and numerous plants thus raised. But there was no difference in their
growth, excepting in one pot, in which the offspring from the
illegitimate union of two long-styled plants exceeded in a decided
manner in height the offspring of flowers on the same plants fertilised
with their own pollen. But in all four pots the plants raised from the
union of distinct plants belonging to the same form, flowered before the
offspring from the self-fertilised flowers.
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