Alternation of Sexes and Intermittent Production of Fruit in the Spider Flower (Cleome Spinosa)

Irregularities in the formation of reproductive organs, such as are seen in the phenomena of intersexualism in both plants and animals, have two points of special interest. First, they involve a particular type of sterility of various grades and degrees of expression, which in plants often affects the production of fruit and seeds and becomes a matter of practical im portance in respect to crop production and in the breeding of various economic plants. A second point of interest is in the bearing which the phenomena of intersexualism have on questions of sex differentiation, the alternation of sex, and the evolutionary tendencies in reproduction.