Abstract
FURTHER records of plant hybridisation before Kolreuter are given by Dr. C. Zirkle (J. Heredity, 25, No. 1), his earlier studies of this subject having been reviewed in NATURE of March 18, 1933, p. 393. Many early writers noted different coloured grains on the same ear of maize, the earliest recorded being by Tabernaemontanus (1588). Cotton Mather, in a letter to James Petiver in 1716, which is preserved in the Sir Hans Sloane collection of the British Museum, described natural crossing between different colour varieties of maize. This letter is published in full. Crossing in Cucurbita was also described. Thomas Fairchild is generally credited with having produced the first artificial plant hybrid, about 1716. From records of Richard Bradley and the minutes of the Royal Society it is concluded that the hybrid first appeared spontaneously, and was then produced by crossing a carnation as female with the pollen of a Sweet William. Bradley himself recorded Auricula hybrids in 1717 and commented on the effect of foreign pollen in several varieties of apples and melons. Other English hybridisers of the same period are Thomas Knowlton, whose observations on Dianthus species hybrids were reported to the Royal Society in 1720; Thomas Henchman, Pre bendary of Salisbury, who in 1729 noted the crossing of pea varieties and the occurrence of blue and white seeds in the same pod; and Benjamin Cooke, who in the Isle of Wight described crossing between maize varieties in 1749 (Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., vol. 46). Twelve different investigators have now been found who described plant hybridisation before Kolreuter.
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Early Plant Hybridisation. Nature 134, 623 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134623a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134623a0