第21章

My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of my book, a surprising number of papers and separate works on the fertilisation of all kinds of flowers have appeared: and these are far better done than I could possibly have effected.The merits of poor old Sprengel, so long overlooked, are now fully recognised many years after his death.

During the same year I published in the 'Journal of the Linnean Society' a paper "On the Two Forms, or Dimorphic Condition of Primula," and during the next five years, five other papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants.I do not think anything in my scientific life has given me so much satisfaction as making out the meaning of the structure of these plants.I had noticed in 1838 or 1839 the dimorphism of Linum flavum, and had at first thought that it was merely a case of unmeaning variability.But on examining the common species of Primula I found that the two forms were much too regular and constant to be thus viewed.I therefore became almost convinced that the common cowslip and primrose were on the high road to become dioecious;--that the short pistil in the one form, and the short stamens in the other form were tending towards abortion.The plants were therefore subjected under this point of view to trial; but as soon as the flowers with short pistils fertilised with pollen from the short stamens, were found to yield more seeds than any other of the four possible unions, the abortion-theory was knocked on thehead.After some additional experiment, it became evident that the two forms, though both were perfect hermaphrodites, bore almost the same relation to one another as do the two sexes of an ordinary animal.With Lythrum we have the still more wonderful case of three forms standing in a similar relation to one another.I afterwards found that the offspring from the union of two plants belonging to the same forms presented a close and curious analogy with hybrids from the union of two distinct species.

In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on 'Climbing Plants,' and sent it to the Linnean Society.The writing of this paper cost me four months; but I was so unwell when I received the proof-sheets that I was forced to leave them very badly and often obscurely expressed.The paper was little noticed, but when in 1875 it was corrected and published as a separate book it sold well.I was led to take up this subject by reading a short paper by Asa Gray, published in 1858.He sent me seeds, and on raising some plants I was so much fascinated and perplexed by the revolving movements of the tendrils and stems, which movements are really very simple, though appearing at first sight very complex, that I procured various other kinds of climbing plants, and studied the whole subject.I was all the more attracted to it, from not being at all satisfied with the explanation which Henslow gave us in his lectures, about twining plants, namely, that they had a natural tendency to grow up in a spire.This explanation proved quite erroneous.Some of the adaptations displayed by Climbing Plants are as beautiful as those of Orchids for ensuring cross-fertilisation.

My 'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication' was begun, as already stated, in the beginning of 1860, but was not published until the beginning of 1868.It was a big book, and cost me four years and two months' hard labour.It gives all my observations and an immense number of facts collected from various sources, about our domestic productions.In the second volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, etc., are discussed as far as our present state of knowledge permits.Towards the end of the work I give my well-abused hypothesis of Pangenesis.An unverified hypothesis is of little or no value; but ifanyone should hereafter be led to make observations by which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have done good service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus connected together and rendered intelligible.In 1875 a second and largely corrected edition, which cost me a good deal of labour, was brought out.