HYBRIDS AND VARIATIONS IN WHEAT. 345 
It is difficult to find two more distinct types than those employed in this 
cross, as they belong to such distinct sections as to have been considered 
as different species, the wheat used as the seed-bearing parent being 
white-eared, beardless, slender and glabrous, while the pollen-bearing 
wheat was red, bearded, compact and hairy. Two plants arising from 
the first cross produced, in 1879, were very much alike. Their ears were 
semi-compact, red, beardless and were decidedly of the class of soft 
wheats. But, in 1880, the produce of these two plants was quite different, 
and, what was a particularly interesting fact, they produced types as 
different from themselves as they were from their common parents. 
The offspring of the first plant was composed of dwrum red and 
beardless wheats. Up to the present time, it has given no variation 
worthy of remark, except that, in 1882, it produced a dwrwm wheat with 
a white ear, but always beardless, which was destroyed by the frost in 
1891. 
The second plant, on the other hand, produceed— 
i. A soft wheat, white, beardless, but with the ear much more 
compact than the Chiddam d’automne 4 épi blanc. 
ii. A turgidum wheat, white and glabrous.* 
iil. A German wheat (77. Spelta) which, as years went on, gave slight 
variations of form and colour, but always remained a German 
wheat. In 1885 it produced two soft wheats, but has not done so 
since then. 
To sum up, from this now ancient cross, there still exist two types, 
which appear to be quite fixed, of which one is a dwrwm wheat, and the 
other a German wheat or spelt, when their parents are T’r. sativwm and 
Tr. turgidum. 
2. ‘BLE DE PoLOGNE’ x ‘ PETANIELLE BLANCHE.’ 
(Tr. polonicum x Tr. turgidum.) 
The cross was made in 1881. 
This experiment was described by my father (“ Bull. Soc. Bot. 
France,’ Jan. 13, 1888). I shall therefore sum up very shortly the first 
years. One single plant from the first generation had a very long ear, 
loose, white and beardless (see figure in “ Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr.” xxxy., 
Plate I.). This was a dwrwm wheat. 
In 18838, the variation was disordered : 
A represents the hybrid plant from the first cross, which has never 
varied since then. It still exists at the present time exactly as it came 
from the seed produced by the original cross. The only peculiarity being 
that this wheat, from 1883 to 1887, showed a tendency to produce two 
spikelets on some of the nodes of the rachis. I point out this fact, to 
which I shall have to refer again. 
B was a beardless wheat, with a white and very slender ear, straw 
very hollow, of the Talavera type, with spikelets long and far apart, 
resembling a soft wheat. In 1884 and 1885, were picked out those plants 
most like a soft wheat, and in 1886, three forms were preserved : 
* These two types, showing a return to the form of their parents, were destroyed 
in 1883. 
