It is
probable that this kind of propagation would be much aided by there being no
expenditure in the production of seed.
Oxalis (Biophytum) sensitiva.
This plant is ranked by many botanists as a distinct genus. Mr. Thwaites sent me
a number of flowers preserved in spirits from Ceylon, and they are clearly
trimorphic. The style of the long-styled form is clothed with many scattered
hairs, both simple and glandular; such hairs are much fewer on the style of the
mid-styled, and quite absent from that of the short-styled form; so that this
plant resembles in this respect O. Valdiviana and Regnelli. Calling the length
of the two lobes of the stigma of the long-styled form 100, that of the mid-
styled is 141, and that of the short-styled 164. In all other cases, in which
the stigma in this genus differs in size in the three forms, the difference is
of a reversed nature, the stigma of the long-styled being the largest, and that
of the short-styled the smallest. The diameter of the pollen-grains from the
longest stamens being represented by 100, those from the mid-length stamens are
91, and those from the shortest stamens 84 in diameter. This plant is
remarkable, as we shall see in the last chapter of this volume, by producing
long-styled, mid-styled, and short-styled cleistogamic flowers.
HOMOSTYLED SPECIES OF OXALIS.
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