We may put this assertion in a briefer form, stating that the active
character prevails in the hybrid over its dormant antagonist. Or as it
is equally often put, the one dominates and the other is recessive. In
this terminology the character of the species is dominant in the hybrid
while that of the variety is recessive. Hence it follows that in the
hybrid the latent or dormant unit is recessive, but it does not follow
that these three terms have the same meaning, as we shall see presently.
The term recessive only applies to the peculiar state into which the
latent character has come in the hybrid by its pairing with the
antagonistic active unit.
In the first place it is of the highest importance to consider crosses
between varieties of recorded origin and the species from which they
have sprung. When dealing with mutations of celandine we shall see that
the laciniated form originated from the common celandine in a garden at
Heidelberg about the year 1590. Among my _Oenotheras_ one of the eldest
of the recent productions is the _O. brevistylis_ or short [281] styled
species which was seen for the first time in the year 1889. The third
example offered is a hairless variety of the evening campion, _Lychnis
vespertina_, found the same year, which hitherto had not been observed.
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