Horwood selected eight fine capsules for sowing; and they included on an average 54.8 seeds, with a maximum of 72. He gave me thirty other capsules, taken by hazard, of which twenty-seven contained good seeds, averaging 35.5, with a maximum of 70; but if six poor capsules, each with less than 13 seeds, be excluded, the average rises to 42.5. These are higher numbers than could be expected from either well- characterised form if self-fertilised; and this high degree of fertility accords with the view that the male organs belonged to one form, and the female organs partially to the other form; so that a self-union in the case of the equal- styled variety is in fact a legitimate union.
The seed saved from the above seventeen self-fertilised equal-styled plants produced sixteen plants, which all proved equal-styled, and resembled their parents in all the above-specified respects. The stamens, however, in one plant were seated higher up the tube of the corolla than in the true long-styled form; in another plant almost all the anthers were contabescent. These sixteen plants were the grandchildren of the four original plants, which it is believed were equal-styled; so that this abnormal condition was faithfully transmitted, probably through three, and certainly through two generations. The fertility of one of these grandchildren was carefully observed: six flowers were fertilised with pollen from the same flower, and produced six capsules, containing on an average 68 seeds, with a maximum of 82, and a minimum of 40. Thirteen capsules spontaneously self-fertilised yielded an average of 53.2 seeds, with the astonishing maximum in one of 97 seeds. In no legitimate union has so high an average as 68 seeds been observed by me, or nearly so high a maximum as 82 and 97. These plants, therefore, not only have lost their proper heterostyled structure and peculiar functional powers, but have acquired an abnormal grade of fertility--unless, indeed, their high fertility may be accounted for by the stigmas receiving pollen from the circumjacent anthers at exactly the most favourable period.
With respect to Mr. Duck's lot in Table 5.31, seed was saved from a single plant, of which the form was not observed, and this produced nine equal-styled and twenty long-styled plants. The equal-styled resembled in all respects those previously described; and eight of their capsules spontaneously self-fertilised contained on an average 44.4 seeds, with a maximum of 61 and a minimum of 23. In regard to the twenty long-styled plants, the pistil in some of the flowers did not project quite so high as in ordinary long-styled flowers; and the stigmas, though properly elongated, were smooth; so that we have here a slight approach in structure to the pistil of the short-styled form. Some of these long-styled plants also approached the equal-styled in function; for one of them produced no less than fifteen spontaneously self-fertilised capsules, and of these eight contained, on an average, 31.7 seeds, with a maximum of 61. This average would be rather low for a long-styled plant artificially fertilised with its own pollen, but is high for one spontaneously self-fertilised. For instance, thirty- four capsules produced by the illegitimate grandchildren of a long-styled plant, spontaneously self-fertilised, contained on an average only 9.1 seeds, with a maximum of 46. Some seeds indiscriminately saved from the foregoing twenty-nine equal-styled and long-styled plants produced sixteen seedlings, grandchildren of the original plant belonging to Mr. Duck; and these consisted of fourteen equal- styled and two long-styled plants; and I mention this fact as an additional instance of the transmission of the equal-styled variety.
The third lot in Table 5.31, namely the Baston plants, are the last which need be mentioned. The long and short-styled plants, and the fifteen equal-styled plants, were descended from two distinct stocks. The latter were derived from a single plant, which the gardener is positive was not long-styled; hence, probably, it was equal-styled.