HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 105 
of MM. Fabre and Dunal, by accounting otherwise for the phenomena on 
which they were founded. 
The ^gilops triticoides, the intermediate form or transitory state between 
JE. ovata and wheat, is, according to M. Godron, when growing wild, found 
on the edges of wheat fields in a country where 2E. ovata is a common weed, 
and under other circumstances of growth, which suggested to him the idea 
that it was a natural hybrid between those two plants. He has confirmed 
this view by actual experiment, fertilizing JE. ovata with the pollen of 
wheat, and thus producing artificially the JSl. triticoides. 
M. Godron concludes, therefore, that " the observations made by M. Fabre 
on the 2E. triticoides do not in any manner prove that our cultivated wheat 
has for its origin the JE. ovata, nor that one species can transform itself 
into another." Some friends of his in German journals go further, and 
assert that he has positively disproved M. Dunal's conclusions. 
We have nothing to say as to the transformation of one " species" into 
another, for according to our notion of the meaning of the word, this 
circumstance would but prove that the two supposed species were in fact 
only varieties or races more or less permanent of one species. We would, 
however, make some observations on the remainder of M. Godron's paper. 
It is admitted that Triticum sativum and ^gilops ovata are strictly 
congeners, as confirmed by the form of the caryopsis ; that M. triticoides is 
the first known instance of a hybrid among grasses ; that M. Fabre raised 
from seeds of a wild 2E. triticoides plants which produced perfect seed which 
he again sowed and continued the operation during twelve successive 
generations, and that during these twelve years' careful cultivation the 
plants gradually acquire more and more the character of wheat ; that 
JE. triticoides is occasionally, though rarely, found in sterile places sur- 
rounded by vineyards. 
But M. Godron observes that there were abundance of wheat fields in the 
neighborhood of the spot where M. Fabre carried on his experiments, from 
whence the pollen might have been wafted so as to fecundate his plants and 
produce that gradual assimilation according to the laws of hybrids. So also 
in the case of the 2E. triticoides in the midst of vineyards, there was quite 
wheat enough cultivated in the surrounding country for some of the pollen 
to have found its way over to the parent plant of 2E. ovata. 
Even admitting this extraordinary dispersive power of the pollen of wheat, 
and that 2E. triticoides as now produced is always of hybrid origin, it appears 
to us that this very great facility of natural hybridization in a family where 
