Genetic Analysis

On March 26, 1900, a notice, Sur la loi de disjunction de hybrids [Concerning the law of segregation of hybrids] appeared in the Compes Rendus de l'Academie de Sciences. Its author, the well-known Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries, stated:

In this short notice, de Vries reminded his readers of his hypothesis of reproduction and generation, according to which an organism may be reduced to preformed units in the gametes that will unfold into mature organs at embryogenesis. His thesis, however, suggests that, besides the morphogenists' tradition of the study of these units “by the phenomena of variability and mutability,” an effective research method is offered by the hybridist tradition, namely, hybridization. This notice presents the segregation principle of the progeny of monohybrids, of “75 per 100N and 25 per 100B” of the dominant character to that of the recessive character.

A more detailed report, submitted twelve days earlier, on March 14, 1900, as a preliminary communication to the Berichte der deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft, was published after the short notice: