Experiments in plant hybridisation / Mendel's original paper in English translation, with commentary and assessment by Sir Ronald A. Fisher, together with a reprint of W. Bateson's biographical notice of Mendel ; edited by J.H. Bennett.

  • Mendel, Gregor, 1822-1884. Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden. English
Date:
[1965]
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Credit: Experiments in plant hybridisation / Mendel's original paper in English translation, with commentary and assessment by Sir Ronald A. Fisher, together with a reprint of W. Bateson's biographical notice of Mendel ; edited by J.H. Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    65/116 (page 51)
    Mendel's paper 51 In the first experiment, therefore, the transformation was completed; in the second, which was not continued further, two more fertilisations would probably have been required. Although the case may not frequently occur in which the dominant characters belong exclusively to one or the other of the original parent plants, it will always make a difference which of the two possesses the majority of dominants. If the pollen parent has the majority, then the selection of forms for further crossing will afford a less degree of certainty than in the reverse case, which must imply a delay in the period of transformation, provided that the experiment is only considered as completed when a form is arrived at which not only exactly resembles the pollen plant in form, but also remains as constant in its progeny. Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives* in the complete trans¬ formation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed within limits beyond which they cannot change. Although this opinion cannot be unconditionally accepted we find on the other hand in Gärtner's experiments a noteworthy confirmation of that supposition regarding variabi¬ lity of cultivated plants which has already been expressed. Among the experimental species there were cultivated plants, such as Aquilegia atropurpúrea and canadensis, Dianthus caryophyllus, chinensis, and japonicus, Nicotiana rustica and paniculata, and hybrids between these species lost none of their stability after four or five generations. * [Es sieht in the original is clearly a misprint for Er sieht.]