Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom by Charles Darwin
page 294 of 636 (46%)
page 294 of 636 (46%)
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Pot 4 : 84 2/8 : 110 4/8. Pot 4 : 76 4/8 : 64 1/8. Total : 666.75 : 557.25. As I wished to ascertain, firstly, whether those self-fertilised plants of the last generation, which greatly exceeded in height their crossed opponents, would transmit the same tendency to their offspring, and secondly, whether they possessed the same sexual constitution, I selected for experiment the two self-fertilised plants marked A and B in Pot 3 in Table 6/85, as these two were of nearly equal height, and were greatly superior to their crossed opponents. Four flowers on each plant were fertilised with their own pollen, and four others on the same plants were crossed with pollen from one of the crossed plants growing in another pot. This plan differs from that before followed, in which seedlings from crossed plants again crossed, have been compared with seedlings from self-fertilised plants again self-fertilised. The seeds from the crossed and self-fertilised capsules of the above two plants were placed in separate watch-glasses and compared, but were not weighed; and in both cases those from the crossed capsules seemed to be rather less numerous than those from the self-fertilised capsules. These seeds were planted in the usual manner, and the heights of the crossed and self-fertilised seedlings, when fully grown, are given in Tables 6/86 and 6/87. The seven crossed plants in the first of these two tables average 95.25, and the seven self-fertilised 79.6 inches in height; or as 100 to 83. In half the pots a crossed plant, and in the other half a self-fertilised plant flowered first. |
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