A conversion of this kind is at least
possible, although it is the reverse of that which appears actually to have
occurred with some Rubiaceous genera and Aegiphila; for with these plants the
short-styled form has become the male, and the long-styled the female. It is,
however, a more simple view that sufficient time has not elapsed for the
reduction of the pistil in the male and hermaphrodite flowers of our Euonymus;
though this view does not account for the pistils in the polleniferous flowers
being sometimes longer than those in the female flowers.
Fragaria vesca, Virginiana, chiloensis, etc. (ROSACEAE).
A tendency to the separation of the sexes in the cultivated strawberry seems to
be much more strongly marked in the United States than in Europe; and this
appears to be the result of the direct action of climate on the reproductive
organs. In the best account which I have seen, it is stated that many of the
varieties in the United States consist of three forms, namely, females, which
produce a heavy crop of fruit,--of hermaphrodites, which "seldom produce other
than a very scanty crop of inferior and imperfect berries,"--and of males, which
produce none. (7/8. Mr. Leonard Wray 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1861 page 716.) The
most skilful cultivators plant "seven rows of female plants, then one row of
hermaphrodites, and so on throughout the field.
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