Things I want to do before I die.



I will give only one, as likewise illustrating one step in the separation of the sexes of plants.

Some holly-trees bear only male flowers, which have four stamens producing a rather small quantity of pollen, and a rudimentary pistil; other holly-trees bear only female flowers; these have a full-sized pistil, and four stamens with shrivelled anthers, in which not a grain of pollen can be detected.

Having found a female tree exactly sixty yards from a male tree, I put the stigmas of twenty flowers, taken from different branches, under the microscope, and on all, without exception, there were a few pollen-grains, and on some a profusion.

As the wind had set for several days from the female to the male tree, the pollen could not thus have been carried.

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