It has been cultivated in botanic gardens for more than
half a century, mostly in annual or biennial generations. It is
sufficiently fertile and always comes true. Numerous records have been
made of it, since formerly it was believed by Fabre and others to be a
spontaneous transition from some wild species of grass to the ordinary
wheat, not a cross. Godron, however, showed that it can be produced
artificially, and how it has probably sprung into existence wherever it
is found wild. The hybrid between _Aegilops ovata_, a small weed, and
the common wheat is of itself sterile, producing no good pollen. But it
may be fertilized by the pollen of wheat and then gives rise to a
secondary hybrid, which is no other than the _Aegilops speltaeformis_.
This remained constant in Godron's experiments during a number of
generations, and has been constant up to the present time.
[266] Constant hybrids have been raised by Millardet between several
species of strawberries. He combined the old cultivated forms with newly
discovered types from American localities. They ordinarily showed only
the characteristics of one of their parents and did not exhibit any new
combination of qualities, but they came true to this type in the second
and later generations.
In the genus _Anemone_, Janczewski obtained the same results.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267