The Self-fertilisation of Plants

Abstract

SOME years ago my suspicions were strongly aroused by certain observations, against the importance of intercrossing ; and since then other conclusions, such as the following, have been steadily forcing themselves upon me, and which will probably agree with Mr. T. Meehan's: (l) that self-fertilisation was the primordial condition of plants ; (2) that conspicuous flowers of all kinds are a secondary result, due to insect agency, by increasing the size &c., of the perianth ; (3) that this has, in its turn, caused a correlative disturbance in the sexual arrangements, viz., that it has caused to be sacrificed the (originally) normal state of self-fertilisation, and has set up cross-fertilisation instead ; (4) that this latter being relatively less certain of being effected, is compensated for by a superabundance of pollen, alteration in its form and influence, dimorphism, the separation of sexes, and perhaps other details of sexual differentiation ; (5) that the existing self-fertilising flowers are in no case primordial but degraded forms ; (6) that in consequence of such degradation, of the perianth especially, the sexual organs have recovered their original energies, and so resume their long lost self-fertilising powers.