NAUDIN — ON HYBRIDISM. 



3 



nately acted the part of father and mother. All these plants 

 attained the most complete development, and were so perfectly 

 like each other that the two sets might easily have been regarded 

 as one. This is a new confirmation of what I have already 

 announced in the memoir cited above — that there is not a sensible 

 difference between reciprocal hybrids of two species, and that 

 in the first generation the hybrids of the same origin resemble 

 each other as much as the individuals of pure species from the 

 same sowing. In this first generation, I repeat, the entire collec- 

 tion of hybrid individuals of the same origin, however numerous 

 they may be, is as homogeneous and as uniform as a group of in- 

 dividuals of an invariable species, or of a pure and neatly-defined 

 race would be. 



But these 130 hybrids presented a fact which was quite new to 

 me : if they perfectly resembled each other, they differed strangely 

 from the two species from which they were derived. They had 

 neither the stature, the habit, the flowers, nor the fruit of their 

 parents ; there was not even anything intermediate between their 

 forms which were so well known and so decided. Any one who 

 did not know the origin of these hybrids, would not have hesi- 

 tated to make a new species of them, and what is worth notice, 

 would have classed them in the violet series, for all had the 

 flowers of this colour and brown stems. Notwithstanding, as I 

 said above, the two parent species belong to the group charac- 

 terized by green stems and white flowers. 



In the face of this unexpected result, one might have been 

 tempted to believe that two species, intermarrying, might impart 

 to their progeny characters which they do not possess themselves ; 

 but such a conclusion was too paradoxical to be accepted without 

 a reexamination. I resolved therefore to recommence the experi- 

 ment the following year, observing at the same time more closely 

 not only the hybrids, but also the species from whence they were 

 derived. 



This year (1864) I have sown afresh D. Icevi-ferox andferoci- 

 Icevis, and by their side D.ferox and D. Icevis in a state of purity. 

 Thirty-six new plants of D. Icevi-ferox, and thirty-nine of feroci- 

 Icevis reproduced all the identical features of their brethren of the 

 preceding year. They had the same brown stems, the violet 

 flowers, and thorny fruit. But what I had not previously re- 

 marked, in D.ferox of a pure strain the stem at the moment of 

 germination is of a deep purplish violet. This vivid tint extends 

 from the root to the cotyledons, where it suddenly ceases, giving 



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