Trees, bushes, and herbaceous plants, both large and small, bearing single
flowers or flowers in dense spikes or heads, have been rendered heterostyled. So
have plants which inhabit alpine and lowland sites, dry land, marshes and water.
(6/3. Out of the 38 genera known to include heterostyled species, about eight,
or 21 per cent, are more or less aquatic in their habits. I was at first struck
with this fact, for I was not then aware how large a proportion of ordinary
plants inhabit such stations. Heterostyled plants may be said in one sense to
have their sexes separated, as the forms must mutually fertilise one another.
Therefore it seemed worth while to ascertain what proportion of the genera in
the Linnean classes, Monoecia, Dioecia and Polygamia, contained species which
live "in water, marshes, bogs or watery places." In Sir W.J. Hooker's 'British
Flora' 4th edition 1838, these three Linnean classes include 40 genera, 17 of
which (i.e. 43 per cent) contain species inhabiting the just-specified stations.
So that 43 per cent of those British plants which have their sexes separated are
more or less aquatic in their habits, whereas only 21 per cent of heterostyled
plants have such habits. I may add that the hermaphrodite classes, from
Monandria to Gynandria inclusive, contain 447 genera, of which 113 are aquatic
in the above sense, or only 25 per cent.
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