intercrossed flowers, contained seeds in the ratio of only 11 to 100.  At my request Fritz Muller sent me from Brazil seeds of his self-sterile plants, from which I raised seedlings.  Two of these were covered with a net, and one produced spontaneously only a single capsule containing no good seeds, but yet, when artificially fertilised with its own pollen, produced a few capsules.  The other plant produced spontaneously under the net eight capsules, one of which contained no less than thirty seeds, and on an average about ten seeds per capsule.  Eight flowers on these two plants were artificially self-fertilised, and produced seven capsules, containing on an average twelve seeds; eight other flowers were fertilised with pollen from a distinct plant of the Brazilian stock, and produced eight capsules, containing on an average about eighty seeds:  this gives a ratio of 15 seeds for the self-fertilised capsules to 100 for the crossed capsules.  Later in the season twelve other flowers on these two plants were artificially self-fertilised; but they yielded only two capsules, containing three and six seeds.  It appears therefore that a lower temperature than that of Brazil favours the self-fertility of this plant, whilst a still lower temperature lessens it.  As soon as the two plants which had been covered by the net were uncovered, they were visited by many bees,and it was interesting to observe how quickly they became, even the more sterile plant of the two, covered with young capsules.  On the following year eight flowers on plants of the Brazilian stock of self-fertilised parentage (i.e., grandchildren of the plants which grew in Brazil) were again self-fertilised, and produced five capsules, containing on an average 27.4 seeds, with a maximum in one of forty-two seeds; so that their self-fertility had evidently increased greatly by being reared for two generations in England.  On the whole we may conclude that plants of the Brazilian stock are much more self-fertile in this country than in Brazil, and less so than plants of the English stock in England; so that the plants of Brazilian parentage retained by inheritance some of their former sexual constitution.  Conversely, seeds from English plants sent by me to Fritz Muller and grown in Brazil, were much more self-fertile than his plants which had been cultivated there for several generations; but he informs me that one of the plants of English parentage which did not flower the first year, and was thus exposed for two seasons to the climate of Brazil, proved quite self-sterile, like a Brazilian plant, showing how quickly the climate had acted on its sexual constitution.

Abutilon darwinii.