ABSTRACT
Hugo de Vries, Dutch plant physiologist and geneticist, is the author of the mutation theory of evolution. His interests included the study of heredity and its relation to the origin of species as well as developing a mutation theory. Pursuing physiological studies at Leiden, de Vries earned his doctorate in plant physiology in 1870 but felt stifled by the university, where conditions for experimental work were crude and where there was open hostility to Darwinism. In the late 1880s, de Vries shifted from experimental work in plant physiology to the study of heredity. De Vries’ theory appealed to all biologists from various disciplines, including cytology, embryology, and plant and animal breeding, among others. De Vries’ theory of pangenesis predisposed him to accept his Oenothera findings as examples of the discontinuity that he believed must exist as discrete types in nature.
