Professor Asa Gray states that the plants of this species growing in the Botanic
Gardens at Cambridge, U.S., are short-styled, but that Siebold and Zuccarini
describe the long-styled form, and give figures of two forms; so that there can
be little doubt, as he remarks, about the plant being dimorphic. (3/16. 'The
American Naturalist' July 1873 page 422.) I therefore applied to Dr. Hooker, who
sent me a dried flower from Japan, another from China, and another from the
Botanic Gardens at Kew. The first proved to be long-styled, and the other two
short-styled. In the long-styled form, the pistil is in length to that of the
short-styled as 100 to 38, the lobes of the stigma being a little longer (as 10
to 9), but narrower and less divergent. This last character, however, may be
only a temporary one. There seems to be no difference in the papillose condition
of the two stigmas. In the short-styled form, the stamens are in length to those
of the long-styled as 100 to 66, but the anthers are shorter in the ratio of 87
to 100; and this is unusual, for when there is any difference in size between
the anthers of the two forms, those from the longer stamens of the short-styled
are generally the longest. The pollen-grains from the short-styled flowers are
certainly larger, but only in a slight degree, than those from the long-styled,
namely, as 100 to 94 in diameter.
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