insects, they rapidly diminish in size, lose their bright colour or almost wholly disappear.[1]
Difficulties and Contradictions.
The very bare summary that has now been given of the main facts relating to the fertilisation of flowers, will have served to show the vast extent and complexity of the inquiry, and the extraordinary contradictions and difficulties which it presents. We have direct proof of the beneficial results of intercrossing in a great number of cases; we have an overwhelming mass of facts as to the varied and complex structure of flowers evidently adapted to secure this intercrossing by insect agency; yet we see many of the most vigorous plants which spread widely over the globe, with none of these adaptations, and evidently depending on self-fertilisation for their continued existence and success in the battle of life. Yet more extraordinary is it to find numerous cases in which the special arrangements for cross-fertilisation appear to have been a failure, since they have either been supplemented by special means for self-fertilisation, or have reverted back in various degrees to simpler forms in which self-fertilisation becomes the rule. There is also a further difficulty in the highly complex modes by which cross-fertilisation is often brought about; for we have seen that there are several very effective yet very simple modes of securing intercrossing, involving a minimum of change in the form and structure of the flower; and when we consider that the result attained with so much cost of structural modification is by no means an unmixed good, and is far less certain in securing the perpetuation of the species than is self-fertilisation, it is most puzzling to find such complex methods resorted to, sometimes to the extent of special precautions against the possibility of self-fertilisation ever taking place. Let us now see whether any light can be thrown on these various anomalies and contradictions.
Intercrossing not necessarily Advantageous.
No one was more fully impressed than Mr. Darwin with the beneficial effects of intercrossing on the vigour and fertility
- ↑ H. Müller gives ample proof of this in his Fertilisation of Flowers.
