It would appear that the self-fertilised descendants of Hero have not only inherited from Hero a power of growth equal to that of the ordinary intercrossed plants, but have become more fertile when self-fertilised than is usual with the plants of the present species.  The flowers on the self-fertilised grandchildren of Hero in Table 2.16 (the eighth generation of self-fertilised plants) were fertilised with their own pollen and produced plenty of capsules, ten of which (though this is too few a number for a safe average) contained 5.2 seeds per capsule,—­a higher average than was observed in any other case with the self-fertilised plants.  The anthers produced by these self-fertilised grandchildren were also as well developed and contained as much pollen as those on the intercrossed plants of the corresponding generation; whereas this was not the case with the ordinary self-fertilised plants of the later generations.  Nevertheless some few of the flowers produced by the grandchildren of Hero were slightly monstrous, like those of the ordinary self-fertilised plants of the later generations.  In order not to recur to the subject of fertility, I may add that twenty-one self-fertilised capsules, spontaneously produced by the great-grandchildren of Hero (forming the ninth generation of self-fertilised plants), contained on an average 4.47 seeds; and this is as high an average as the self-fertilised flowers of any generation usually yielded.

Several flowers on the self-fertilised grandchildren of Hero in Table 2/16 were fertilised with pollen from the same flower; and the seedlings raised from them (great-grandchildren of Hero) formed the ninth self-fertilised generation.  Several other flowers were crossed with pollen from another grandchild, so that they may be considered as the offspring of brothers and sisters, and the seedlings thus raised may be called the intercrossed great-grandchildren.  And lastly, other flowers were fertilised with pollen from a distinct stock, and the seedlings thus raised may be called the Colchester-crossed great-grandchildren.  In my anxiety to see what the result would be, I unfortunately planted the three lots of seeds (after they had germinated on sand) in the hothouse in the middle of winter, and in consequence of this the seedlings (twenty in number of each kind) became very unhealthy, some growing only a few inches in height, and very few to their proper height.  The result, therefore, cannot be fully trusted; and it would be useless to give the measurements in detail.  In order to strike as fair an average as possible, I first excluded all the plants under 50 inches in height, thus rejecting all the most unhealthy plants.  The six self-fertilised thus left were on an average 66.86 inches high; the eight intercrossed plants 63.2 high; and the seven Colchester-crossed 65.37 high; so that there was not much difference between the three sets, the self-fertilised plants having a slight advantage.  Nor was there