On the transformation of Aegilops into wheat / by Professor Henfrey.

  • Arthur Henfrey
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the transformation of Aegilops into wheat / by Professor Henfrey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    If ^gilops triticoides has preservfed some of the characters of j^gilops ovata, which should be the case, it is not therefore a ne- cessary conclusion that these have the importance of characters truly generic, and that our hybrid has preserved none of the characters of Triticum ; it is, in our eyes, perfectly intermediate between the two species which have given birth to it. Hence 1 think myself authorized in maintaining the three conclusions which I have deduced in my memoir on the fertiliza- tion of yEgilops by Triticum ; they express clearly what 1 desired to demonstrate in this essay. I now arrive at JEgilops xpeltatj'ormis, which in my opinion is only an accessory, an accident, in the question forming the object of my anterior investigations of ^gilops triticoides. Whatever opinion may be accepted as to the new species created by M. Jordan, this opinion cannot in any way weaken the proofs of the hybrid origin of ^gilops triticoides, a question vvhicli seems to me now settled. According to M. Jordan, I have confounded ^gilops speltCB- formis with ^gilops triticoides., and also with Triticum vulgaris, whence, in virtue of the axiom that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, he concludes that I have also confounded JEgilops triticoides with wheat. This is trying to prove too much. I regret to say it, but both these assertions are quite inexact. In the first place : is the question about j^gilops speltceformis, cultivated for twelve years by M. Fabre, specimens of whic i I have communicated to M. Jordan ? What I have said in my last memoir on this subject is, The plant has gradually acquired a more elevated stature ; its glumes have lost one of the tivo awns which distinguish j^gilo])s triticoides ; in a word, this plant lias acquired, in part at least, the characters of wheat. This ])as- sage has doubtless escaped M. Jordan ; at this time I having nothing to add, and nothing to subtract from it. Is the question relative to the wild j:^gilops speltceformis f Here confusion was impossible either with wheat or with JEgilops triticoides. I have never seen JEgilops .speltceformis in a wild state, although I have investigated most carefully the species of ^gilops which grow in the environs of Agde and Montpellier. On his side, M. Jordan nowhere says that he himself lias seen wild specimens of this plant; he only remarks that M. Fabre speaks of having found it wild in the neighbourhood of Agde, confounding it in this state with ^gilops triticoides. I will take the liberty to observe that M. Fabre merely afiirnis that he has gathered ^gilops triticoides, that it has been rejiroduced with two awns to each valve of the glume, in most of the specimens (kuing the first two years of cultivation, and tliat in tlie succeed-
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