Fertilisation of the Hazel

Abstract

IN NATURE for April 7, 1870 (vol. i. p. 583), Mr. Marcus Hartog stated, as the result of his observations, that the male catkins and female flowers of the hazel are not simultaneously developed on the same twig, and that therefore a kind of quasi-cross-fertilisation necessarily takes place. Although convinced at the time that my observation did not tally with Mr. Hartog's, it was then too late in the season to submit my impression to a practical test. During the past week I have closely observed the hazel bushes in flower, and have found on every bush which has come under my notice, the female and male flowers in a perfect state of development on the same ultimate twigs, in close proximity to one another, the stigmas being frequently loaded with pollen-grains, apparently from the neighbouring catkin; at all events there appears no provision of nature specially to promote fertilisation from other bushes. We see in fact here a confirmation of the general law suggested in my paper in the first number of NATURE, on “The Fertilisation of Winter Flowering Plants,” that when plants flower in the depth of winter, and at a time when no or few insects are about, self-fertilisation is the rule rather than the exception, or in the case of unisexual flowers, as near an approach to self-fertilisation as is possible under the circumstances.