W. P. Bateson’s 1909 Mendel’s Principles of Heredity, which contains the 1901 English translation of Mendel’s German original, can be read online at the Internet Archive or downloaded from Google books. Mendel’s stand-alone paper can be read online at Electronic Scholarly Publishing.
THE MOST SALIENT EXCERPTS
(if you don’t want to tackle the whole)
Gregor Mendel
Experiments in Plant Hybridisation
translated by the Royal Horticultural Society
Concluding Remarks
…According to the opinion of [German botanists Joseph Kolreuter and Karl Fridrich von Gaertner], the hybrids in outer appearance present either a form intermediate between the original species, or they closely resemble either the one or the other type, and sometimes can hardly be discriminated from it. From their seeds usually arise, if the fertilisation was effected by their own pollen, various forms which differ from the normal type. As a rule, the majority of individuals obtained by one fertilisation maintain the hybrid form, while some few others come more like the seed parent, and one or other individual approaches the pollen parent. This, however, is not the case with all hybrids without exception. With some the offspring have more nearly approached, some the one and some the other, original stock, or they all incline more to one or the other side; while with others they remain perfectly like the hybrid and continue constant in their offspring. The hybrids of varieties behave like hybrids of species, but they possess greater variability of form and a more pronounced tendency to revert to the original type.
…Gaertner confesses even that the exact determination whether a form bears a greater resemblance to one or to the other of the two original species often involved great difficulty, so much depending upon the subjective point of view of the observer. Another circumstance could, however, contribute to render the results fluctuating and uncertain, despite the most careful observation and differentiation; for the experiments plants were mostly used which rank as good species and are differentiated by a large number of characters….[T]he series in each separate experiment must embrace very many forms, since the number of the components, as is known, increases with the number of the differentiating characters in cubic ratio. With a relatively small number of experimental-plants the result therefore could only be approximately right, and in single cases might fluctuate considerably. If, for instance, the two original stocks differ in seven characters, and 100 and 200 plants were raised from the seeds of their hybrids to determine the grade of relationship of the offspring, we can easily see how uncertain the decision must become, since for seven differentiating characters the combination series contains 16,384 individuals under 2187 various forms; now one and then another relationship could assert its predominance, just according as chance presented this or that form to the observer in a majority of cases.
If, furthermore, there appear among the differentiating characters at the same time dominant characters, which are transferred entire or nearly unchanged to the hybrids, then in the terms of the developmental series that one of the two original stocks which possesses the majority of dominant characters must always be predominant. In the experiment described relative to Pisum, in which three kinds of differentiating characters were concerned, all the dominant characters belonged to the seed parent. Although the terms of the series in their internal composition approach both original stock plants equally, in this experiment the type of the seed parent obtained so great a preponderance that out of each sixty-four plants of the first generation fifty-four exactly resembled it, or only differed in one character. It is seen how rash it may be under such circumstances to draw from the external resemblances of hybrids conclusions as to their internal nature.
Gaertner mentions that in those cases where the development was regular among the offspring of the hybrids the two original species were not reproduced, but only a few closely approximating individuals. With very extended developmental series it could not in fact be otherwise.
For seven differentiating characters, for instance, among more than 16,000 individuals — offspring of the hybrids — each of the two original species would occur only once. It is therefore hardly possible that these should appear at all among a small number of experimental plants; with some probability, however, we might reckon upon the appearance in the series of a few forms which approach them….
With Pisum it was shown by experiment that the hybrids form egg and pollen cells of different kinds, and that herein lies the reason of the variability of their offspring. In other hybrids, likewise, whose offspring behave similarly we may assume a like cause; for those, on the other hand, which remain constant the assumption appears justifiable that their fertilising cells are all alike and agree with the foundation-cell of the hybrid. In the opinion of renowned physiologists, for the purpose of propagation one pollen cell and one egg cell unite in Phanerogams into a single cell, which is capable by assimilation and formation of new cells to become an independent organism. This development follows a constant law, which is founded on the material composition and arrangement of the elements which meet in the cell in a vivifying union. If the reproductive cells be of the same kind and agree with the foundation cell of the mother plant, then the development of the new individual will follow the same law which rules the mother plant. If it chance that an egg cell unites with a dissimilar pollen cell, we must then assume that between those elements of both cells, which determine the mutual differences, some sort of compromise is effected. The resulting compound cell becomes the foundation of the hybrid organism, the development of which necessarily follows a different scheme from that obtaining in each of the two original species. If the compromise be taken to be a complete one, in the sense, namely, that the hybrid embryo is formed from cells of like kind, in which the differences are entirely and permanently accommodated together, the further result follows that the hybrids, like any other stable plant species, remain true to themselves in their offspring.
The reproductive cells which are formed in their seed vessels and anthers are of one kind, and agree with the fundamental compound cell….
The differentiating characters of two plants can finally, however, only depend upon differences in the composition and grouping of the elements which exist in the foundation cells of the same in vital interaction…
If a species A is to be transformed into a species B, both must be united by fertilisation and the resulting hybrids then be fertilised with the pollen of B; then, out of the various offspring resulting, that form would be selected which stood in nearest relation to B and once more be fertilised with B pollen, and so continuously until finally a form is arrived at which is like B and constant in its progeny….
If it may be assumed that in these experiments the constitution of the forms resulted in a similar way to that of Pisum, the entire process of transformation would find a fairly simple explanation. The hybrid forms as many kinds of egg cells as there are constant combinations possible of the characters conjoined therein, and one of these is always of the same kind as the fertilising pollen cells. Consequently there always exists the possibility with all such experiments that even from the second fertilisation there may result a constant form identical with that of the pollen parent. Whether this really be obtained depends in each separate case upon the number of the experimental plants, as well as upon the number of differentiating characters which are united by the fertilisation. Let us,for instance, assume that the plants selected for experiment differed in three characters, and the species ABC is to be transformed into the other species abc by repeated fertilisation with the pollen of the latter ; the hybrids resulting from the first cross form eight different kinds of egg cells, namely:
ABC, ABc, AbC, aBC, Abc, aBc, abC, abc
These in the second year of experiment are united again with the pollen cells abc, and we obtain the series
AaBbCc + AaBbc + AabCc + aBbCc + Aabc + aBbc + abCc + abc
Since the form abc occurs once in the series of eight components, it is consequently little likely that it would be missing among the experimental plants, even were these raised in a smaller number, and the transformation would be perfected already by a second fertilisation. If by chance it did not appear, then the fertilisation must be repeated with one of those forms nearest akin, Aabc, aBbc, abCc. It is perceived that such an experiment must extend the farther the smaller the number of experimental plants and the larger the number of differentiating characters in the two original species; and that, furthermore, in the same species there can easily occur a delay of one or even of two generations such as Gaertner observed. The transformation of widely divergent species could generally only be completed in five or six years of experiment, since the number of different egg cells which are formed in the hybrid increases in square ratio with the number of differentiating characters.
Gaertner found by repeated experiments that the respective period of transformation varies in many species, so that frequently a species A can be transformed into a species B a generation sooner than can species B into species A.…
Experiments which in this connection were carried out with two species of Pisum demonstrated that as regards the choice of the fittest individuals for the purpose of further fertilisation it may make a great difference which of two species is transformed into the other. The two experimental plants differed in five characters, while at the same time those of species A were all dominant and those of species B all recessive. For mutual transformation A was fertilised with pollen of B and B with pollen of A, and this was repeated with both hybrids the following year. With the first experiment, B/A, there were eighty-seven plants available in the third year of experiment for the selections of individuals for further crossing, and these were of the possible thirty-two forms; with the second experiment, A/B, seventy-three plants resulted, which agreed throughout perfectly in habit with the pollen parent; in their internal composition, however, they must have been just as varied as the forms of the other experiment. A definite selection was consequently only possible with the first experiment; with the second the selection had to be made at random, merely. Of the latter only a portion of the flowers were crossed with the A pollen, the others were left to fertilise themselves….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 that 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. If the pollen parent shows the majority, then the selection of forms for further crossing will afford a less degree of security 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.
Gaertner, 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 transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed within limits beyond which they cannot change. Althoughthis opinion cannot be unconditionally accepted we find on the other hand in Gaertner’s experiments a noteworthy confirmation of that supposition regarding variability of cultivated plants which has already been expressed….
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