Creating A More Beautiful World: A Century of Progress in the Breeding of Floral and Nursery Plants

In an intriguing article titled “Horticulture: the Font for the Baptism of Genetics” by Robert C. Olby (2000) suggests that the establishment of genetics as an experimental science should be credited to the Evolution Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). William Bateson was a member of this committee and he was the stimulus for the adoption of Mendelism as a science and for the acceptance of hybridization as a breeding protocol. Olby mentions that the RHS sponsored international meetings on plant hybridization in 1899, 1902, and 1906. It was at the third meeting that William Bateson named Mendel s science genetics. Olby reminds us that hybridization of Fuchsia was the subject of one of Mendel s portraits. Today the RHS is known for its stewardship of the knowledge and practice of horticulture and in particular of ornamental plants. In contrast, Olby states that most prominent biologists of the time, botanists and zoologists, did not accept Mendelism until the early 1920s.