Now a legitimate short-styled plant would have yielded, when
legitimately fertilised, an average of 64 seeds, with a possible maximum of 74.
This particular kind of infertility will perhaps be best appreciated by a
simile: we may assume that with mankind six children would be born on an average
from an ordinary marriage; but that only three would be born from an incestuous
marriage. According to the analogy of Primula Sinensis, the children of such
incestuous marriages, if they continued to marry incestuously, would have their
sterility only slightly increased; but their fertility would not be restored by
a proper marriage; for if two children, both of incestuous origin, but in no
degree related to each other, were to marry, the marriage would of course be
strictly legitimate, nevertheless they would not give birth to more than half
the full and proper number of children.
[EQUAL-STYLED VARIETY OF Primula Sinensis.
As any variation in the structure of the reproductive organs, combined with
changed function, is a rare event, the following cases are worth giving in
detail. My attention was first called to the subject by observing, in 1862, a
long-styled plant, descended from a self-fertilised long-styled parent, which
had some of its flowers in an anomalous state, namely, with the stamens placed
low down in the corolla as in the ordinary long-styled form, but with the
pistils so short that the stigmas stood on a level with the anthers.
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