366 PLANT HYBRIDIZATION BEFORE MENDEL 



Finally, it is to Professor Bateson, that the initiation of the 

 first definite Mendelian terminology after 1900 is due, the words 

 "allelomorph," "homozygote" and "heterozygote" having been 

 proposed by him as early as 1901, in the First Report to the 

 Evolution Committee of the Royal Society, presented for publica- 

 tion December 17 of that year. In this report, appearing less than 

 two years after the rediscovery of the Mendel papers, Bateson 

 made the following statement (p. 126) : 



"We thus reach the conception of unit-characters existing in antagon- 

 istic pairs. Such characters we propose to call allelomorphs, and the 

 zygote formed by the union of a pair of opposite allelomorphic gametes, 

 we call a heterozygote. Similarly the zygote formed by the union of 

 gametes having similar allelomorphs, may be spoken of as a homozygote. 

 Upon a wide survey, we now recognize that this first principle has an 

 extensive application in nature. We cannot as yet determine the limits of 

 its applicability, and it is possible that many characters may really be 

 allelomorphic, which we now suppose to be 'transmissible' in any degree 

 of intensity." 



This concludes the discussion, made purposely as complete as 

 possible, of the facts and documents surrounding the discovery 

 and bringing to light of Mendel's celebrated paper in 1900. It is 

 believed that this should form a fitting conclusion to the attempt 

 to give as complete an historical account as possible of the data 

 upon hybridization in plants during what may be called the pre- 

 Mendelian period — the period from Kolreuter's first publication 

 in 1763 to 1900. 



