On The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin Chapter 9 Page 74

would have been in some degree sterile when crossed, become perfectly fertile together.

With plants, so far is cultivation from giving a tendency towards sterility between distinct species, that in several well- authenticated cases already alluded to, certain plants have been affected in an opposite manner, for they have become self-impotent, while still retaining the capacity of fertilising, and being fertilised by, other species. If the Pallasian doctrine of the elimination of sterility through long-continued domestication be admitted, and it can hardly be rejected, it becomes in the highest degree improbable that similar conditions long- continued should likewise induce this tendency; though in certain cases, with species having a peculiar constitution, sterility might occasionally be thus caused. Thus, as I believe,