Abstract
IT would take too much space to reply in detail to all of Dr. Lotsy's statements, for which I have great respect. They go far outside the original point at issue, but it is necessary to refer to the more important of them, and it will then probably be seen that the others are immaterial. In his original letter (NATURE, October 27, p. 274), which commented on an article of mine on “British Roses and Hybridity” (NATURE, September 15, p. 99), he states that Jeffrey's work tends “to show that the presence of ‘bad pollen’ is Proof [my italics] of a hybrid origin,” and goes on to say that this view is “much strengthened” by other work. He correctly states that I took exception to that view, my own view being that “bad pollen” is unsafe as a criterion of hybridity, in support of which I cited various facts. As some of these facts were from a paper of which I was joint author, the original article was unsigned, but since this controversy, which was not of my seeking, has arisen, I prefer to sign my own name. In his present letter Dr. Lotsy seems to forget that the burden of proof rests upon those who assume that bad pollen is a proof of hybridity. He says that my postscript to his article is “not according to facts,” and that he did not suggest the hybrid nature of Trillium, Dirca, and Scoliopus. I can only ask, if that is the case, why did he refer to them in his original article? Cytological work, which is by no means all “recent,” proves that hybridity is a cause of bad pollen, but by no means proves that it is the only cause.
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GATES, R. Hybridity and the Evolution of Species. Nature 108, 401 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/108401a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/108401a0
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