PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 23 



"in which, with the pollen of diverse plants upon diverse females . . . 

 they may attempt to effect new species of vegetables. And if I observe 

 this to be not displeasing, the more will my mind be aroused, for that 

 period of life which is left to me, to be consecrated to these experi- 

 ments, which recommend themselves both in virtue of their attractive- 

 ness and by their great usefulness. For, led by many reasons, I am of 

 the opinion that the many and prominent varieties of plants in use in 

 the kitchen have been produced by that kind of generation, such as 

 the numerous Brassicas, Lactucas, etc., and therefore have not been 

 changed by their location. Wherefore I am unable to have confidence in 

 that rule which holds that all varieties arise from the diverse nature of 

 the soil ; for if it were true, plants indeed, when they are changed to 

 new places, would recover their pristine aspect." (p. 129.) 



"It is impossible to doubt that there are new species produced by hybrid 

 generation. From all these things, we learn that the hybrid is brought 

 forth, as to the medullary substance or the internal plant or fructifica- 

 tion as the exact image of the mother, but as to its leaves and other 

 external parts it is as that of the father. These considerations, there- 

 fore, lay down a new foundation for the students of nature, to which 

 many things contribute. For thence it appears to follow, that the many 

 species of plants in the same genus in the beginning could not have 

 been otherwise than one plant, and have arisen from this hybrid genera- 

 tion." (pp. 127-8.) 



In a dissertation entitled "Fundamentum fructificationis," Octo- 

 ber 16, 1762, appearing as No. 8, in the "Fundamenta Botanica" 

 (Vol. 1, pp. 169-214) 1786, f8d), by Johannes Mart. Graberg, 

 one of Linnaeus' pupils, appears the follow^ing: 



"That in the vegetable kingdom it is admitted that hybrid generations 

 exist, although rarely, see, from the 'Amoenitates Acad.' (t. 3, p. 28) of 

 our President, his solution of the St. Petersburg question concerning 

 the sex of plants, Petrop. 1760. A most satisfactory example of this fact 

 we have seen this summer in the Academic Garden ; here for several 

 years in the same bed grew Verbascum thapsus, and Verbascum lych' 

 nitis.'" 



The origin of the presumed hybrid between these two species 

 appears to have been spontaneous, since the plant in question 

 seems to have come from naturally fertilized seeds of V. Lychnitis^ 

 and was identified by Linnaeus with the specimen which Agerius, 

 one hundred or more years previously, had sentto Joh. Bauhin, who 

 gave the plant the name of "Verbassum angustifolium ramosum^ 

 flore aureo^ folio crassiori^'' in his "Historia" (p. 856). Linnaeus' 

 plant is described as being similar to the female parent in the 

 branched stem, the filaments of the flowers, and in the other parts 

 of the inflorescence, but resembling the pollen parent in size, in 

 the calices, and in the somewhat decurrent leaves, which were yet 

 not so much so as in the male parent. Graberg concludes that : 



