ROYAL 



JOURNAL 



OF THE 



HORTICULTURAL 



SOCIETY. 



I. On Hybridism considered as a cause of variability in Vegetables. 

 By M. Ch. Naudin*. 



The changes of form in the species of the vegetable kingdom are 

 very properly considered at the present moment one of the phe- 

 nomena which are most worthy of attracting the attention of 

 observers. The subject of the variability of species, which was 

 put aside amongst questions of secondary consideration, has within 

 a short time assumed an unexpected importance ; and without 

 mentioning the philosophical deductions to which it has given 

 rise, it may be asserted that it forces itself on our notice at the 

 very commencement of all our descriptive works. For the last 

 ten years I have devoted to it all my attention, and though duly 

 estimating the facts in this direction observed by my predecessors, 

 it is nevertheless to my own experiments I have looked especially 

 for enlightenment on this obscure subject. I do not pretend to 

 have solved all the difficulties which it involves, but I think that I 

 have arrived at results which, I hope at least, will throw some 

 light upon points in the biology of vegetables which have been 

 hitherto perplexed. 



In a memoir which I had the honour of presenting to the 

 Academy two years ago I established this fact, confirmed since by 

 new experiments, that, setting out from the second generation, 

 hybrid vegetables, when they are fertile, revert very frequently to 

 one of the two species from whence they were derived. This 



* Translated, by permission of the author, from Comptes Kendus de l'Academie 

 des Sciences, Nov. 21, 1864. 



VOL. I. B 



