Die von Gärtner, Kölreuter und Anderen gemachte Wahrnehmung, dass Hybriden die Neigung besitzen zu den Stammarten zurückzukehren, ist auch durch die besprochenen Versuche bestätigt.
The observation made by Gärtner, Kölreuter and others that hybrids have a tendency to revert to the parent-species, is also confirmed by the experiments being reviewed.
observation = Wahrnehmung Wahrnehmung had already largely acquired its modern meaning of “perception” in the mid-nineteenth century, but was still being used as a synonym for Beobachtung (lat. observatio), notably also in its religious sense; see Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, online-edition, s.v. “wahrnehmung” (1907). That Mendel speaks of Wahrnehmung in the sense of “observation” here is clear from his use of the term in connection with the verb machen (to make), which implies an activity.
Gärtner, Kölreuter and others = Gärtner, Kölreuter und Anderen See p. 3, s. 4. It is not quite clear which concrete observations Mendel may have had in mind here. It is likely that he is referring quite generally to observations of “throw-backs” (Rückschläge) and “regressions” (Rückschritte) that his predecessors made in their experiments, although it should be noted that these usually pertained to cases where the descendants of hybrids showed a tendency to return to one of their parental forms only, i.e. to either the maternal or the paternal type. The model Mendel develops in the following, in contrast, demonstrates a symmetric return of descendants of hybrids to both parental types. Gärtner mentions a “tendency of the hybrids to separate their factors in further generations in throw-backs and progresses” — Neigung der Bastarde zur Trennung ihrer Faktoren in den weiteren Generationen in Rück- und Vorschläge; Gärtner distinguishes Rückschläge, where descendants approach the maternal form, and Vorschläge where descendants approach the paternal form — in a passage of his book that argues against the stability of hybrids (in line with Kölreuter ) and that Mendel marked with a pencil line in the margin; see Carl Friedrich Gärtner, Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich (Stuttgart: Hering, 1849), Mendel Museum, Collection of the Augustinian Abbey, p. 446.
Kölreuter The manuscript originally had Köhlreuter, with the h later deleted.
reviewed = besprochenen Bateson has “described”, Sherwood “discussed”; see p. 3, s. 2
parent-species = Stammarten Both Bateson and Sherwood have “parental forms”; see p. 5, s. 10.