222 ESSAYS ON WHEAT 



unfolded themselves to the sunlight one by one, and the 

 slender stem, elongating ever more rapidly, ceased from 

 its upward strivings neither night nor day until it had 

 raised to the full height its precious burden — the spike of 

 flowers. Each flower, left to itself, underwent self-pollina- 

 tion: the pollen dust of the three stamens fell upon the 

 two stigmas of the same flower when the glumes opened, 

 and, as a consequence, the so-called self-fertilization of 

 the ovules which normally takes place in all wheat flowers, 

 was accomplished. Finally, the flowering spike developed 

 into a head of ripe kernels, after which the whole plant, 

 with the exception of the kernels, gradually lost its vitality 

 and died. Thus the life-cycle of the plant which began 

 vtdth the fertilized egg-cell, came to an end with the pro- 

 duction of reproductive bodies which provided for the con- 

 tinuance of the species in the next year. 



The plants which grew from the seeds of the original 

 cross-bred plant were very variable. No full record was 

 kept of this variability, but it is probable that the descend- 

 ants of the original cross-bred plant became differentiated 

 into several scores of distinct types. It was a single head 

 of a single plant of one of these types, which was finally se- 

 lected by Dr. Saunders in 1903 to provide the seeds from 

 which Marquis originated. 



Since the nucleus of the fertilized egg-cell from which 

 sprang the plant which gave rise to Marquis, originated 

 from the union of a male nucleus from a Red Fife plant 

 and a female nucleus from a Hard Eed Calcutta plant, and 

 since all the millions of nuclei in the millions of cells which 

 make up every Marquis plant have all been derived from 

 that original nucleus, it is not surprising to find that Mar- 

 quis exhibits characters of both its original parents. 



Hard Eed Calcutta is a very early-ripening wheat with 

 short straw and short bearded heads. Its grains are very 



