Handbook of Genetics

Abstract

The snapdragon, Antirrhinum majus is one of the classical species for genetic study. The first publication is that of Godron (1863), who reported the results of crosses between Antirrhinun majus and Antirrhinum barrelieri. Mendel mentions in letters that he made crosses with snapdragons, but he never published the details. Darwin (1868) crossed plants with normal and with peloric flowers, selfed the F1 generation, and found in the F2generation a ratio of 88 normal to 37 peloric plants. However, he was unable to propose a theoretical explanation for his results. A. majus was one of the species used by De Vries in his rediscovery of the Mendelian laws, and further studies in the snapdragon also provided him with insights into the mutation phenomenon. In 1907 Baur in Germany and Wheldale in Great Britain published the first papers on the inheritance of flower colors, and these served as the forerunners of the large and varied literature that now exists for this species [see Stubbe’s (1966) monograph].