260 



The Journal of Heredity 



ancestors at the end of several genera- 

 tions, as recent observations seem to 

 indicate. In answer to this query, he 

 says: "We have determined, upon hy- 

 brids of Ltnaria, that the hybrid forms 

 may become very fertile, and that a 

 certain number of individuals, from the 

 second generation, return respectively 

 to the two primitive types, when they 

 grow in company with their parents, and 

 this return movement manifests itself 

 much more in the following generations." 



Godron remarks that the same fact 

 has been observed by Lecoq in the fertile 

 hybrids of stocks, by Naudin in the 

 fertile hybrids of tobacco, and by several 

 observers in primula and in petunia. 

 From these experiments, then, he con- 

 cludes the proof of the final return of 

 fertile hybrids to their parental forms to 

 be established. Godron was a victim of 

 the rigid idea of species, which held, that 

 because so many hybrids between 

 different "species," so called, were 

 sterile, that therefore any hybrid which 

 proved fertile must necessarily, ipso 

 facto, prove the parents not to be of 

 different species but to be merely 

 varieties of the same species. 



To the vain purpose of settling this 

 verbal controversy, as to whether such 

 and such plants were to be regarded as 

 separate "species," or merely as varie- 

 ties of the same species, many of the 

 most ardent endeavors of hybridists, 

 both before and since Mendel's time, 

 have been conscientiously and duly 

 devoted. A sample of this method of 

 reasoning in a circle so vigorously com- 

 bated by Herbert, and characterized by 

 Sageret as "fighting the air," is exem- 

 plified in a sentence of Godron which 

 typifies the then general view. He 

 says : "To admit that two distinct species 

 have produced hybrids which, from the 

 very first have become very fertile, would 

 constitute a very grave exception to the 

 law which has its sanction in the 

 numerous experiments which, for a 

 century past, have been made by Koel- 

 reuter, Wiegmann, C. F. Gartner, etc., 

 and by M. Naudin himself, that simple 

 hybrids are sterile or but little fertile.'' 

 (Italics inserted.) 



Considering the fact, however, that 



hybrids between confessedly distinct 

 species are so frequently sterile, it is not 

 surprising that, in view of the then 

 greater interest in the species question 

 itself, that hybridizers should have 

 turned systematic botanists and have 

 made the sterility of the hybrid offspring 

 a criterion of species distinction. Be- 

 sides his competing memoir before the 

 Paris Academy, Godron was the author 

 of several other contributions to the 

 literature of plant hybridization, includ- 

 ing that of the then celebrated question 

 as to the possible origin of cultivated 

 wheat from the wild plant Aegilops 

 ovata. 



naudin's conclusions 



The general conclusions of importance 

 for his time, at which Naudin arrived, are 

 as follows — in the language of the award 

 committee of the Academy — and which 

 are quoted in their own words (6c) to 

 show the point of view of science at 

 that time: "The first, and the most 

 important of all, is that the singular 

 beings which result from the cross- 

 fertilization of two different types, far 

 from being condemned to absolute 

 sterility, are frequently endowed with 

 the faculty of producing seeds capable 

 of germination" (p. 129). 



"The second consequence of major 

 interest which proceeds from the nu- 

 merous experiments in the same memoir 

 is that fertile hybrids have a manifest 

 tendency to return to the forms that pro- 

 duced them,, and that without other action 

 than that of their own proper pollen, 

 under such conditions that the pollen of 

 the parents is not able to exercise the 

 influence to determine this return" (p. 

 129). 



UNIT CHARACTERS 



An essential feature in Naudin's 

 paper, of high importance from our 

 present standpoint, is the independent 

 behavior of characters in a cross, and 

 referred to by the Academy committee 

 as follows: "Not content with respond- 

 ing by numerous experiments to the 

 questions propounded by the Academy, 

 the author . . . has sought to 

 throw light upon several points, some 

 obscure, others not yet studied, in the 



