PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 151 



"It is known that among peas there exist races with white seeds, and 

 others which, even at maturity, have green seeds. Now this year [1889], 

 examining peas obtained by crossing a race with green seeds with a 

 race with white seeds, I have frequently found in the same pod seeds 

 of different colors. This character of color, easily appreciable to the eye, 

 permits the conclusion that all the seeds of the same plant are not 

 necessarily alike among themselves, nor endowed exactly with the same 

 faculty of reproduction." (p. 488.) 



No analysis, however, was made of the nature of this phe- 

 nomenon, by growing separately the green and the white seeds 

 thus produced, 



Vilmorin ventures no further view upon the fundamental na- 

 ture of hybridization than to say that cross-fecundation has this 

 inexplicable but well-determined result, so far as the characters 

 of the plant are concerned, "of grouping them in the different 

 seeds resulting from the cross in very variable combinations and 

 proportions." 



It is to be seen that there exists here a recognition of the germ 

 of the idea of the segregation of characters, without, however, 

 furnishing the data for knowing their possible proportions. 



Henry de Vilmorin reported to the Societe Botanique de France 

 (Sessions of February 27 and December 10, 1880; 7c, pp. 73-4, 

 356-61), upon the hybridization of wheat. "Several times in the 

 course of recent years," he states, "I have had occasion to make 

 crosses between different varieties of wheat, to the end of obtain- 

 ing new forms, presenting, from the agricultural point of view, 

 certain qualities which I sought to develop." (p. 73.) These crosses 

 originally made between varieties of Triticum sativum, suggested 

 the attempting of crosses also between different forms of wheat, 

 originally regarded as belonging to different species. The charac- 

 ters of the hybrids in the sativum crosses were reported as being 

 in general intermediate, now approaching one, now the other par- 

 ent, or offering characters found in neither. Crossing a pubescent 

 wheat, "Ble a duvet," reciprocally with a reddish, beardless, smooth 

 spelt {T. spelta), the products of the cross were intermediate 

 where spelt was the $ and "Ble a duvet" the $ parent. From the 

 reciprocal cross, eight similar and intermediate plants were ob- 

 tained. The grain was adherent to the glumes, and the rachis 

 fragile as in spelt, but less so. The important thing, in Vilmorin's 

 opinion, was the ability of two supposed "species" of wheat to 



