108 Transformation of ^'Egilops into Wheat. 



lation of the flowers of j^gilops ovata, submitting this plant 

 simultaneously to the action of its own pollen and that of the 

 ioreign pollen. In the second trial the mutilation was only 

 partial ; in the third it was complete. The experiments of 

 fertilization were made at Montpellier in the month of May, 

 1853, and the products obtained were planted in pots at Besancon 

 on the 27th of March, 1854, under protection from the action of 

 late frosts. 



Fi?'st Experiment. — On the 20th of May, 1853, I scattered the 

 pollen of Triticum vulrjare muticum upon six spikes of JEgilops 

 ovata which were about to llower, intending thus to place the 

 yJEf/ilops in the same conditions as are present wlien, growing on 

 the border of a wheat-field, it is accidentally affected by the 

 fecundating dust of that cereal. The foreign pollen penetrates 

 the more readily into the flower from the circumstance that, at 

 this epoch of the life of the plant, and until after the flower- 

 ing, the glumellae of JEgilops ovata naturally separate to the 

 extent of about the twenty-fifth of an inch. These six spikes 

 were gathered directly they wci'e ripe, and planted in the spring 

 of the next year. They furnished the following result : five of 

 the spikes produced JEgilops ovata, exclusively ; the sixth like- 

 wise produced several stems of this grass, but one of the seeds 

 gave birth to two stems much taller than those of the parent 

 plant, and the spikes of these presented the' most perfect resem- 

 blance to those of that variety oi yEgilops triticoides in which the 

 awns are half-abortive, and, as it were, rudimentary. This 

 variety, which I have gathered in a wild state about Montpellier, 

 is, therefore, the result of the fertilization of JEfjilops ovata by 

 the beardless wheat. 



Second Experiment. — Not being able to foretell the success of 

 the preceding experiment, and desiring to reproduce the very 

 curious fact of two distinct plants arising from the same spike 

 of j^f/ilops ovata, I had recourse to mutilation and artificial 

 fertilization carried into effect upon two flowers only of eacli 

 spike of the ^Egi/ops. 



The removal of the anthers before the natural fertilization can 

 take place, and at a time when these organs are still enclosed in 

 the flower, seems at first sight an operation very delicate to 

 execute. But it is not at all so if the method of operating be 

 followed that I adopted, and which requires no other instruments 

 than the fingers and a small pair of forceps with very fine points. 

 I am induced to describe this mode of opei-ating because it is 

 extremely simple ; and a knowledge of it will enable all botanists 

 to repeat and control my experiments. It consists in taking fast 

 hold of the awns of the outer glumella, as near as possible to 

 their origin, between the index finger placed beneath and the 



