22 PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 



from Leipzig is evidently referred to on page 124, although the 

 species is wrongly given as Phoenix dactylifera. Kaempfer's re- 

 port upon the custom of hand pollination of the date in eastern 

 countries is referred to in the following words : 



"Kaempfer recently reported that it is necessary that oriental peoples, 

 subsisting upon the yield of the palms and the true Lotophagi, trans- 

 port the male trees to the neighborhood of the females, if they look for 

 fruit." (p. 125.) 



Linnaeus concludes by giving an account of four hybrid plants 

 known to have originated in his time : 



"Tres ego, vel quatuor, veras, plantas hybridas meo primum extitisse 

 tempore his oculis vidi, quas ordine enumerabo." (p. 125.) 



The Veronica maritima 5 X Verbena officinalis S (see p. 27 

 below) is referred to as resembling the female parent in the 

 fructification, the male parent in the leaves ("fructificatione ma- 

 trem tota quanta refert, foliis patrem"). (p. 126.) 



Omitting the references to a Delphinium and a Hieracium hy- 

 brid, both of which occurred spontaneously, the case should be 

 noted of the hybrid Tragopogon^ resulting from a cross made 

 by Linnaeus between Tragopogon pratense 5 X Tragopogon por- 

 rifolius $ . The history of this hybrid, of which seeds were sent 

 to the St. Petersburg Academy at the same time as the disserta- 

 tion, is as follows : 



Linnaeus states that he made the cross mentioned above in 

 '757' "^^ areola horti," where he had planted the two species. 



"I obtained Tragopogon hybridum two years ago about autumn, in a 

 small enclosure of the garden, where I had planted Tragopogon 

 pratense and Tragopogon porrifolius, but the winter supervening de- 

 stroyed the seeds. Early the following year, when Tragopogon pratense 

 flowered, I rubbed off the pollen early in the morning, and at about 

 eight in the morning I sprinkled the pistils with pollen from Tragopogon 

 porrifolius and marked the calices with a thread bound around them. 

 From these, towards autumn, I collected the mature seeds, and sowed 

 them in a separate place, where they germinated, and in this year 1759- 

 gave purple flowers with yellow bases, the seeds of which I now send." 

 (pp. 126-7.) 



Linnaeus finally concludes with the naive observation: 



"I do not know whether any other experiment would show generation 

 more certainly than this one itself," (p. 127.) 



Hybrid fertilization thus appears to Linnaeus as a new field 

 opened up to botanists, 



