Barry drew an accurate analogy in the last paragraph of
his posting. Indeed, Rob has not carried out a systematic
experiment to verify his hypothesis. He claims that a
careful experiment would have to be conducted in order
to achieve accurate results. Flowers of two species
would have to be cross pollinated using the same
technique. For example, ten flowers of each species
would serve the maternal role for a total of twenty flowers.
The number of seeds generated in each case would have to
be counted. According to the hypothesis, more seeds
would result from the case where the flowers with shorter
stigma-to-ovary distance served the maternal role.
Additionally, the pollen from two species (with very
different stigma-to-ovary distances) could be germinated
and examined under a microscope If Rob had a microscope
he would do this himself. The goal is to observe
the length of tube that grows from each germinated
pollen grain. The tube should be longer from that
pollen grain which came from the flower with the
longer stigma-to-ovary distance.
Rob says that he postulates his hypothesis based on
flower anatomy. He emphasizes that it's NOT the
FLOWER SIZE that's important, but rather the DISTANCE
BETWEEN STIGMA AND OVARY that IS important. The
two concepts are not one and the same since flower
size is often gauged by the size of the petals, sepals,
etc. The hypothesis would apply to any sort of flowering
plant, not just Sarraceniae.
The hybrid that Rob produced was between S. Psittacina and
S. Flava.
Perry