I formerly applied the term
"heteromorphic" to the legitimate unions, and "homomorphic" to the illegitimate
unions; but after discovering the existence of trimorphic plants, in which many
more unions are possible, these two terms ceased to be applicable. The
illegitimate unions of both forms might have been tried in three ways; for a
flower of either form may be fertilised with pollen from the same flower, or
with that from a another flower on the same plant, or with that from a distinct
plant of the same form. But to make my experiments perfectly fair, and to avoid
any evil result from self-fertilisation or too close interbreeding, I have
invariably employed pollen from a distinct plant of the same form for the
illegitimate unions of all the species; and therefore it may be observed that I
have used the term "own-form pollen" in speaking of such unions. The several
plants in all my experiments were treated in exactly the same manner, and were
carefully protected by fine nets from the access of insects, excepting Thrips,
which it is impossible to exclude. I performed all the manipulations myself, and
weighed the seeds in a chemical balance; but during many subsequent trials I
followed the more accurate plan of counting the seeds. Some of the capsules
contained no seeds, or only two or three, and these are excluded in the column
headed "good capsules" in several of the following tables:--
TABLE 1.
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