Agrobiology, 265-266 (1954)
T. D. Lysenko

Sand Cherry x Peach

I shall cite another example from the work of the Michurin Central Genetic Pomological Laboratory related and shown to me by P. N. Yakovlev. The flowers of the cherry Cerasus [Prunus] Besseyi were castrated and pollinated with the pollen of a peach. This experiment had been started when Ivan Vladimirovich was still alive. The resulting stones were planted and from them grew plants which in no way differed from the maternal form (i.e., the cherry). The flowers of these plants, which were regarded as nonhybrids, were also castrated and pollinated with peach pollen. Again, the resulting progeny in no way differed from the maternal form,

P. N. Yakovlev continued this operation until the fifth generation, i.e., five generations of hybrids were consecutively castrated and pollinated with peach pollen. The result was that only in the fifth generation two plants were found with the characters of the peach, i.e., of the father among the hundreds of plants that were obtained from the stones of these crosses. This example also shows how, under definite conditions, the heredity of one parent (even in the course of five generations of consecutive fertilization) can entirely absorb the heredity of the other parent.

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CybeRose note: There are other instances of apparent parthenogenesis with spontaneous chromosome doubling, sometimes with small bits of paternal chromosomes remaining in the partial hybrids. In such cases, true hybrids may rarely occur—such as Van Fleet’s hybrid of L. concolor x L. tenuifolium.