Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/177

Rh to note that they occur also in the vegetable kingdom. Allowing for all the circumstances which are known to prevent the production of seed, such as too great luxuriance of foliage, too little or too much heat, or the absence of insects to cross-fertilise the flowers, Mr. Darwin shows that many species which grow and flower with us, apparently in perfect health, yet never produce seed. Other plants are affected by very slight changes of conditions, producing seed freely in one soil and not in another, though apparently growing equally well in both; while, in some cases, a difference of position even in the same garden produces a similar result.

Another indication of the extreme delicacy of the adjustment between the sexes, which is necessary to produce fertility, is afforded by the behaviour of many species and varieties when reciprocally crossed. This will be best illustrated by a few of the examples furnished us by Mr. Darwin. The two distinct species of plants, Mirabilis jalapa and M. longiflora, can be easily crossed, and will produce healthy and fertile hybrids when the pollen of the latter is applied to the stigma of the former plant. But the same experimenter, Kölreuter, tried in vain, more than two hundred times during eight years, to cross them by applying the pollen of M. jalapa to the stigma of M. longiflora. In other cases two plants are so closely allied that some botanists class them as varieties (as with Matthiola annua and M. glabra), and yet there is the same great difference in the result when they are reciprocally crossed.

A still more remarkable illustration of the delicate balance of organisation needful for reproduction, is afforded by the individual differences of animals and plants, as regards both their power of intercrossing with other individuals or other species, and the fertility of the offspring thus produced. Among domestic animals, Darwin states that it is by no means rare to find certain males and females which will not breed