QH I
I
M 42
EXPERIMENTS
IN
PLANT-HYBRIDISATION
BY
GREGOR MENDEL
CAMBRIDGE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
CT7,
APPENDIX **%K^
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EXPERIMENTS IN PLANT-HYBRIDISATION \ - 1?* R A?
By Gregor Mendel \ /
(flead ai the Meetings of the 8th February and 8th March, 1865.)
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Experience of artificial fertilisation, such as is effected with ornamental plants in order to obtain new variations in colour, has led to the experiments which will here be discussed. The strikingregularity with which the same hybrid forms always reappeared whenever fertilisation took place between the same species induced further experiments to be undertaken, the object of which was to follow up the developments of the hybrids in their progeny.
To this object numerous careful observers, such as Kolreuter,
Gartner, Herbert, Lecoq, Wichura and others, have devoted a part of their lives with inexhaustible perseverance. Gartner especially, in his work "Die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreiche " (The Production of Hybrids in the Vegetable Kingdom), has recorded very valuable observations; and quite recently Wichura published the results of some profound investigations into the hybrids of the
Willow. That, so far, no generally applicable law governing the formation and development of hybrids has been successfully formulated can hardly be wondered at by anyone who is acquainted with t…