in its
relation to the two kinds of pollen. I am anxious about this, because if
it should prove so, it will show that all plants with longer and shorter
or otherwise different anthers will have to be examined for dimorphism.

LETTER 622. TO ASA GRAY. March 15th [1862].

...I wrote some little time ago about Rhexia; since then I have been
carefully watching and experimenting on another genus, Monochaetum; and
I find that the pistil is first bent rectangularly (as in the sketch
sent), and then in a few days becomes straight: the stamens also move.
If there be not two forms of Rhexia, will you compare the position of
the part in young and old flowers? I have a suspicion (perhaps it will
be proved wrong when the seed-capsules are ripe) that one set of anthers
are adapted to the pistil in early state, and the other set for it
in its later state. If bees visit the Rhexia, for Heaven's sake watch
exactly how the anther and stigma strike them, both in old and young
flowers, and give me a sketch.

Again I say, do not hate me.

LETTER 623. TO J.D. HOOKER. Leith Hill Place, Dorking, Thursday, 15th
[May 1862].

You stated at the Linnean Society that different sets of seedling
Cinchona (623/1. Cinchona is apparently heterostyled: see "Forms of
Flowers," Edition II., page 134.) grew at very different rate, and from
my Primula case you attributed it probably to two sorts of pollen. I
confess I thought you rash, but I now believe you were quite right.
I find the yellow and crimson anthers of the same flower in the
Melastomatous Heterocentron roseum have different powers; the yellow
producing on the same plant thrice as many seeds as the crimson anthers.
I got my neighbour's most skilful gardener to sow both kinds of seeds,
and yesterday he came to me and said it is a most extraordinary thing
that though both lots have been treated exactly alike, one lot all
remain dwarfs and the other lot are all rising high up. The dwarfs were
produced by the pollen of the crimson anthers. In Monochaetum ensiferum
the facts are more complex and still more strange; as the age and
position of the pistils comes into play, in relation to the two kinds of
pollen. These facts seem to me so curious that I do not scruple to ask
you to see whether you can lend me any Melastomad just before flowering,
with a not very small flower, and which will endure for a short time a
greenhouse or sitting-room; when fertilised and watered I could send it
to Mr. T