When fully grown they were again measured, as follows:—­

Table 6/79.  Petunia violacea (third generation; plants fully grown).

Heights of plants measured in inches.

Column 1:  Number (Name) of Pot.

Column 2:  Crossed Plants.

Column 3:  Self-fertilised Plants.

Pot 1 :  41 4/8 :  40 6/8. 
Pot 1 :  48 :  39. 
Pot 1 :  36 :  48.

Pot 2 :  36 :  47. 
Pot 2 :  21 :  80 2/8. 
Pot 2 :  36 2/8 :  86 2/8.

Pot 3 :  52 :  46.

Pot 4 :  57 :  43 6/8.

Total :  327.75 :  431.00.

The eight crossed plants now averaged 40.96, and the eight self-fertilised plants 53.87 inches in height, or as 100 to 131; and this excess chiefly depended, as already stated, on the unusual tallness of two of the self-fertilised plants in Pot 2.  The self-fertilised had therefore lost some of their former great superiority over the crossed plants.  In three of the pots the self-fertilised plants flowered first; but in Pot 3 at the same time with the crossed.

The case is rendered the more strange, because the crossed plants in the fifth pot (not included in the two last tables), in which all the remaining seeds had been thickly sown, were from the first finer plants than the self-fertilised, and had larger leaves.  At the period when the two tallest crossed plants in this pot were 6 4/8 and 4 5/8 inches high, the two tallest self-fertilised were only 4 inches.  When the two crossed plants were 12 and 10 inches high, the two self-fertilised were only 8 inches.  These latter plants, as well as many others on the same side of this pot never grew any higher, whereas several of the crossed plants grew to the height of two feet!  On account of this great superiority of the crossed plants, the plants on neither side of this pot have been included in the two last tables.

Thirty flowers on the crossed plants in Pots 1 and 4 (Table 6/79) were again crossed, and produced seventeen capsules.  Thirty flowers on the self-fertilised plants in the same two pots were again self-fertilised, but produced only seven capsules.  The contents of each capsule of both lots were placed in separate watch-glasses, and the seeds from the crossed appeared to the eye to be at least double the number of those from the self-fertilised capsules.

In order to ascertain whether the fertility of the self-fertilised plants had been lessened by the plants having been self-fertilised for the three previous generations, thirty flowers on the crossed plants were fertilised with their own pollen.  These yielded only five capsules, and their seeds being placed in separate watch-glasses did not seem more numerous than those from the capsules on the self-fertilised plants self-fertilised for the fourth time.  So that as far as can be judged from so few capsules, the self-fertility of the self-fertilised plants had not decreased in comparison with that of the plants which had been intercrossed during the three previous generations.  It should, however, be remembered that both lots of plants had been subjected in each generation to almost exactly similar conditions.