Chapter 282

...You must kindly permit me to mention any point on which I want information. If you are so inclined, I am curious to know from systematic experiments whether Mr. D. Beaton's statement that the pollen of two shortest anthers of scarlet Pelargonium produce dwarf plants (625/1. See "Animals and Plants," Edition II., Volume II., page 150, for a brief account of Darwin's experiments on this genus. Also loc. cit., page 338 (note), for a suggested experiment.), in comparison with plants produced from the same mother-plant by the pollen of longer stamens from the same flower. It would aid me much in some laborious experiments on Melastomads. I confess I feel a little doubtful; at least, I feel pretty nearly sure that I know the meaning of short stamens in most plants. This summer (for another object) I crossed Queen of Scarlet Pelargonium with pollen of long and short stamens of multiflora alba, and it so turns out that plants from short stamens are the tallest; but I believe this to have been mere chance. My few crosses in Pelargonium were made to get seed from the central peloric or regular flower (I have got one from peloric flower by pollen of peloric), and this leads me to suggest that it would be very interesting to test fertility of peloric flowers in three ways,--own peloric pollen on peloric stigma, common pollen on peloric stigma, peloric pollen on common stigma of same species. My object is to discover whether with change of structure of flower there is any change in fertility of pollen or of female organs. This might also be tested by trying peloric and common pollen on stigma of a distinct species, and conversely. I believe there is a peloric and common variety of Tropaeolum, and a peloric or upright and common variation of some species of Gloxinia, and the medial peloric flowers of Pelargonium, and probably others unknown to me.