Abstract
IN his book on “Cross and Self-fertilisation of Plants” (pp. 393–401), Charles Darwin called special attention to the subject of pollen-prepotency, and showed that numerous cases occur where the ovary of a given flower is more effectually pollinated by means of pollen-grains from some other flower, or from particular anthers, than by grains from its own anthers. If the two kinds of grains be present together on the stigma, the prepotent pollen is able to drive its tubes down the stigma more rapidly than the other, and so the ovules are reached first, and the egg-cells fertilised by the contents of the favoured or successful tubes—a point of great significance in crossing. Numerous examples were also given by Darwin, which indicate far-reaching effects of pollen on various parts of the flower and ripening fruit; these may be termed pollen-potency. Since Darwin's time we have learnt much more of the processes which go on in pollination and fertilisation, and, among other things, that the pollen tube of, for instance, a lily, carries down in its end, floating in its protoplasm, two active nuclei (generative nuclei) which bear in themselves the here-ditable properties of the parent plant of the pollen, as well as remains of another nucleus (vegetative nucleus) of no use in fertilisation.
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References
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WARD, H. The Potency and Prepotency of Pollen . Nature 61, 470–471 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/061470a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/061470a0