Pangenesis

Abstract

MR. DARWIN, in his letter to NATURE of April the 27th, says: “The fundamental laws of growth, reproduction, inheritance, &c., are so closely similar throughout the whole organic kingdom that the means by which the gemmules (assuming for the moment their existence) are diffused through the body, would probably be the same in all beings, therefore the means can hardly be diffusion through the blood.” Now, if in the vegetable kingdom pangenetic gemmules are able freely to be “diffused” from cell to cell by endosmosis, we should expect that in the case of grafts, where certainly such diffusion goes on between the cells of the stock and the scion, a bud borne upon the graft would certainly be affected by the gemmules arising in the root and stem of the stock. Yet we all know that the pips from a pear grafted on a quince stock will not give rise to a hybrid between a pear and a quince, neither will the stone of a peach which has been grafted on a plum stock grow into a tree whose stock bears plums, while the extremities of its branches bear peaches.