OCR Text |
Show 216 CYCLAMEN PERSICUM. CUAI:'. VI. was 9 ·49 inches. After a considerable interval of time tho self-fertilised plants flowered, v,nd several of theh· flower-stems (but I forgot to record how many) wore roughly measured, and their average height was a little under 7 · 5 inches; so that the flower-stems on the crossed plants to those on the self-fertilised were at least as 100 to 79. The reason why I did. not make more careful measurements of the self-fortHisod plants was, that they looked such pool' specimens that I determined to have them re-potted in larger pots and in the following year to measure them carefully; but we shall see that this was partly frustrated by so few flower-stems being then produced. These plants were left uncovered in the greenhouse; and the twelve crossed plants produced forty capsules, whilst the twelve self-fertilised plants produced only five; or as 100 to 12. But this difference does not give a just idea of the relative fertility of the two lots. I counted the seeds in one of the finest capsules on the crossed plants, and it contained seventy-three; whilst the finest of the five capsules produced by the selffertilised plants contained only thirty-five good seeds. In the other four capsules most of the seeds were barely half as large as those in the crossed capsules. TABLE XCI. Cyclamen persicum: 0 'implies that no flower-stem was produced. No. of Pot. I Crossed Plants. Self-fertilised Plant3. Inches. Inches. I. 10 0 92g 0 lOg 0 II. 9g 0 10 0 10~ 0 III. 91 g 8 9~ 6~ gr. g 6() g IV. 11~ 0 10~ 7~ 10~ 0 Total in inches. 119•88 29•50 CHAP. VI. ANAGALLIS COLLINA. 217 In the following year the crossed plants again bore many flowers before the self-fertilised bore a single one. Tho three tallest flower-stems on the crossed plants in each of the pots were measured, as shown in Table XCI. In Pots I. and II. the self-fertilised plants did not produce a single flower-stem; in Pot IV. only one; and in Pot III. six, of which the three tallest wore measured. · The average height of the twelve flower-stems on the crossed plants is 9 · 99, and that of the four flower-stems on the. ~elffertmsed plants 7 · 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. grand1jlora (pale 1·ed 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 produood 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, el<:wen flowers on the red variety wore castr~ted whilst young and fertilised with pollen from the blue vanety, 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, viz., 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. These seeds were also conspicuously larger than those from the cross between two individuals of the same red variety, and germinated much more freely. rrhe flowers on most of the plants produced by the .cross between the two-coloured varieties (of which several were rmsed), |