MENDEL'S EXPERIMENTS 337 



edible pea, he reached a very important conclusion in regard to 

 the inbreeding of hybrids, which is often briefly referred to as 

 "Mendel's Law." His publication was practically buried in the 

 Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brunn; those 

 who knew of it, as Nageli for instance did, failed to realise its 

 importance : in fact, Mendel's epoch-making work was lost 

 sight of amid the enthusiasm and controversy which the pro- 

 mulgation of Darwinism (1858) had evoked. Mendel's Law 

 seems to have been rediscovered independently in 1900 by 

 the botanists De Vries, Correns, and Tschermak; and to Mr. 

 Bateson we owe much, not only for his recognition of the 

 far-reaching importance of the abbot's work, but also for a 

 notable series of experiments in which he has confirmed and 

 extended it. 



Mendel's Experiments. What Mendel sought to discover was 

 the law of inheritance in hybrid varieties, and he selected for 

 experiment the edible pea (Pisum sativum). The trial plants, 

 he says, must possess constant differentiating characters, and 

 must admit of easy artificial pollination ; the hybrids of the 

 plants must be readily fertile, and readily protectable from the 

 influence of foreign pollen. These conditions were afforded by 

 peas, and twenty- two varieties or subspecies of pea were selected, 

 which remained constant during the eight years of the experi- 

 ments. Whether they are called species, or subspecies, or 

 varieties, is a matter of convenience ; the names Pisum quad- 

 ratum, P. saccharatum, P. umbellatum, etc., do in any case repre- 

 sent groups of similar individuals which breed true inter se. It 



and natural science at Vienna from 1851 to 1853. Thence he returned 

 to his cloister and became a teacher in the Realschule at Briinn. It was 

 his hobby to make hybridisation experiments with peas and other plants 

 in the garden of the monastery, of which he eventually became abbot. 

 Apart from two papers, one dealing with peas and a shorter one with 

 hawkweeds, and some meteorological observations, he does not seem to 

 have published much. But what he did publish, if small in quantity, 

 was large in quality. He died in 1884. 



