ANAGALLIS.
Anagallis collina, var. grandiflora (pale red and blue-flowered sub-varieties).
Firstly, twenty-five flowers on some plants of the red variety were crossed with pollen from a distinct plant of the same variety, and produced ten capsules; thirty-one flowers were fertilised with their own pollen, and produced eighteen capsules. These plants, which were grown in pots in the greenhouse, were evidently in a very sterile condition, and the seeds in both sets of capsules, especially in the self-fertilised, although numerous, were of so poor a quality that it was very difficult to determine which were good and which bad. But as far as I could judge, the crossed capsules contained on an average 6.3 good seeds, with a maximum in one of thirteen; whilst the self-fertilised contained 6.05 such seeds, with a maximum in one of fourteen.
Secondly, eleven flowers on the red variety were castrated whilst young and fertilised with pollen from the blue variety, and this cross evidently much increased their fertility; for the eleven flowers yielded seven capsules, which contained on an average twice as many good seeds as before, namely, 12.7; with a maximum in two of the capsules of seventeen seeds. Therefore these crossed capsules yielded seeds compared with those in the foregoing self-fertilised capsules, as 100 to 48. These seeds were also conspicuously larger than those from the cross between two individuals of the same red variety, and germinated much more freely. The flowers on most of the plants produced by the cross between the two-coloured varieties (of which several were raised), took after their mother, and were red-coloured. But on two of the plants the flowers were plainly stained with blue, and to such a degree in one case as to be almost intermediate in tint.
The crossed seeds of the two foregoing kinds and the self-fertilised were sown on the opposite sides of two large pots, and the seedlings were measured when fully grown, as shown in Tables 6/92a and 6/92b.
TABLE 6/92a. Anagallis collina: Red variety crossed by a distinct plant of the red variety, and red variety self-fertilised.
Heights of plants measured in inches.
Column 1: Number (Name) of Pot.
Column 2: Crossed Plants.
Column 3: Self-fertilised Plants.
Pot 1 : 23 4/8 : 15 4/8. Pot 1 : 21 : 15 4/8. Pot 1 : 17 2/8 : 14.
Total : 61.75 : 45.00.
TABLE 6/92b. Anagallis collina: Red variety crossed by blue variety, and red variety self-fertilised.
Heights of plants measured in inches.
Column 1: Number (Name) of Pot.
Column 2: Crossed Plants.
Column 3: Self-fertilised Plants.
Pot 2 : 30 4/8 : 24 4/8. Pot 2 : 27 3/8 : 18 4/8. Pot 2 : 25 : 11 6/8.
Total : 82.88 : 54.75.
Total of both lots:
: 144.63 : 99.75.
As the plants of the two lots are few in number, they may be run together for the general average; but I may first state that the height of the seedlings from the cross between two individuals of the red variety is to that of the self-fertilised plants of the red variety as 100 to 73; whereas the height of the crossed offspring from the two varieties to the self-fertilised plants of the red variety is as 100 to 66. So that the cross between the two varieties is here seen to be the most advantageous. The average height of all six crossed plants in the two lots taken together is 48.20, and that of the six self-fertilised plants 33.25; or as 100 to 69.
These six crossed plants produced spontaneously twenty-six capsules, whilst the six self-fertilised plants produced only two, or as 100 to 8. There is therefore the same extraordinary difference in fertility between the crossed and self-fertilised plants as in the last genus, Cyclamen, which belongs to the same family of the Primulaceae.
Primula veris. British flora. (var. officinalis, Linn.).