PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 123 



species is only an old species in which develop organs ancient but for- 

 gotten, or new organs, of which the germ existed, but of which the 

 development had not yet been favored." (5, pp. 304-5.) 



The clear manner in which Sageret's mind rather instinctively 

 seized the conception of the independent descent of characters is 

 exemplified in a sentence in which he says that all plants, and 

 possibly still more, hybrid plants, 



". . . having the ability to recall, so to speak at will, without measure 

 and indifferently, and independently of one another, the qualities of 

 their ascendants, it is possible that some among them, illy assorted, 

 should have left out all there was of good and have taken all there was 

 of ill." (5:308.) 



18. Godron and Naudin on Hybridization. 



In 1861, the Paris Academy of Sciences proposed the follow- 

 ing problem to receive the grand prize in the physical sciences : 



"To study plant hybrids from the point of view of their fecundity, 

 and of the perpetuity or non-perpetuity of their characters. 



"The production of hybrids amongst plants of different species of 

 the same genus is a fact determined long since, but many precise re- 

 searches still remain to be made in order to solve the following ques- 

 tions, which have an interest equally from the point of view of general 

 physiology, and of the determination of the limits of species, of the 

 extent of their variations. 



1. "in what cases of hybrids are they self-fertile ? Does this fecundity 

 of hybrids stand in relation to the external resemblances of the species 

 from which they come, or does it testify to a special affinity from the 

 point of view of fertilization, as has been remarked regarding the ease 

 of production of the hybrids themselves? 



2. "Do self-sterile hybrids always owe their sterility to the imperfec- 

 tion of the pollen *? Are the pistil and the ovules always suspectible of 

 being fecundated by a foreign pollen, properly selected? Is an appreci- 

 ably imperfect condition sometimes observed in the pistil and the ovules? 



3. "Do hybrids, which reproduce themselves by their own fecundation, 

 sometimes preserve invariable characters for several generations, and 

 are they able to become the type of constant races, or do they always 

 return, on the contrary, to the forms of their ancestors, after several 

 generations, as recent observations seem to indicate ?" 



The two chief competitors under the Academy's offer were 

 Charles Naudin, of the Museum of Natural History at Paris, and 

 D. A. Godron, of the University of Nancy, the prize being 

 awarded to the former. The papers of both appeared in Vol. 19 

 of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles (Botanique), 4me Serie, 

 1863. (2c, 4c.) 



The title of Godron's thesis was, "Des hybrides vegetaux, con- 



