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Sterility in the Vegetable Marrow

Abstract

SEEING that a letter on the above subject has recently appeared in NATURE (October 23, p. 592), it may be of interest to place on record my experience this summer regarding pumpkins. Besides growing vegetable marrows, which, as it happens, have behaved quite normally this season, bearing an abundant crop, we usually put out a single pumpkin plant and manage, as a rule, to obtain from it one large fruit. For the first time, two plants were put out this year—a piece of good fortune, for one of these declined to produce a single female flower. I had it under strict observation the whole season. The other behaved normally, forming plenty of female flowers and ripening one fruit. The two plants grew side by side under identical conditions of soil and light. Pumpkins have been grown by me for the last six or seven years, and this is the first time a plant has been seen to behave in this way. I have never yet come across a completely male marrow plant.

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PARKIN, J. Sterility in the Vegetable Marrow. Nature 118, 697 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118697c0

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