Chapter 1

HETEROSTYLED DIMORPHIC PLANTS: PRIMULACEAE.

Primula veris or the cowslip. Differences in structure between the two forms. Their degrees of fertility when legitimately and illegitimately united. P. elatior, vulgaris, Sinensis, auricula, etc. Summary on the fertility of the heterostyled species of Primula. Homostyled species of Primula. Hottonia palustris. Androsace vitalliana.

(FIGURE 1.1. Primula veris. Left: Long-styled form. Right: Short-styled form.)

It has long been known to botanists that the common cowslip (Primula veris, Brit. Flora, var. officinalis, Lin.) exists under two forms, about equally numerous, which obviously differ from each other in the length of their pistils and stamens. (1/1. This fact, according to Von Mohl 'Botanische Zeitung' 1863 page 326, was first observed by Persoon in the year 1794.) This difference has hitherto been looked at as a case of mere variability, but this view, as we shall presently see, is far from the true one. Florists who cultivate the Polyanthus and Auricula have long been aware of the two kinds of flowers, and they call the plants which display the globular stigma at the mouth of the corolla, "pin-headed" or "pin-eyed," and those which display the anthers, "thrum-eyed." (1/2. In Johnson's Dictionary, "thrum" is said to be the ends of weavers' threads; and I suppose that some weaver who cultivated the Polyanthus invented this name, from being struck with some degree of resemblance between the cluster of anthers in the mouth of the corolla and the ends of his threads.) I will designate the two forms as the long-styled and short-styled.

The pistil in the long-styled form is almost exactly twice as long as that of the short-styled. The stigma stands in the mouth of the corolla or projects just above it, and is thus externally visible. It stands high above the anthers, which are situated halfway down the tube and cannot be easily seen. In the short-styled form the anthers are attached near the mouth of the tube, and therefore stand above the stigma, which is seated in about the middle of the tubular corolla. The corolla itself is of a different shape in the two forms; the throat or expanded portion above the attachment of the anthers being much longer in the long-styled than in the short-styled form. Village children notice this difference, as they can best make necklaces by threading and slipping the corollas of the long-styled flowers into one another. But there are much more important differences. The stigma in the long-styled form is globular; in the short-styled it is depressed on the summit, so that the longitudinal axis of the former is sometimes nearly double that of the latter. Although somewhat variable in shape, one difference is persistent, namely, in roughness: in some specimens carefully compared, the papillae which render the stigma rough were in the long- styled form from twice to thrice as long as in the