These two sets of pistils did not differ in length, or if
there was any difference those of the polleniferous flowers were rather the
longest. In one hermaphrodite plant, which produced during three years very few
and poor fruit, the pistil much exceeded in length the stamens bearing perfect
and as yet closed anthers; and I never saw such a case on any female plant. It
is a surprising fact that the pistil in the male and in the semi-sterile
hermaphrodite flowers has not been reduced in length, seeing that it performs
very poorly or not at all its proper function. The stigmas in the two forms are
exactly alike; and in some of the polleniferous plants which never produced any
fruit I found that the surface of the stigma was viscid, so that pollen-grains
adhered to it and had exserted their tubes. The ovules are of equal size in the
two forms. Therefore the most acute botanist, judging only by structure, would
never have suspected that some of the bushes were in function exclusively males.
Thirteen bushes growing near one another in a hedge consisted of eight females
quite destitute of pollen and of five hermaphrodites with well-developed
anthers. In the autumn the eight females were well covered with fruit, excepting
one, which bore only a moderate number. Of the five hermaphrodites, one bore a
dozen or two fruits, and the remaining four bushes several dozen; but their
number was as nothing compared with those on the female bushes, for a single
branch, between two and three feet in length, from one of the latter, yielded
more than any one of the hermaphrodite bushes.
Pages:
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389