566 Mr. Sabine's Observations 



chaffy. His description of the varieties is very perfect; they 

 differ, he says, a little in the form and size of their leaves and in 

 the size of their stems, but most in the colour of their flowers, 

 which are white, flesh-coloured, purple, violet-yellow, and red, 

 and three inches and more in diameter. These varieties, he 

 states, are cultivated in the gardens of Cochinchina and China, 

 on account of the beauty of their flowers, but he adds that the 

 odour of the whole plant is disagreeable. 



The preceding accounts are all referable without difficulty to 

 the plants called Chinese Chrysanthemums, for there is nothing 

 recorded by these authors which does not well agree with those 

 varieties we already know, save that it is stated by Thunberg 

 that some of them blossom in the summer, and by Koempfer 

 that they are in flower in all seasons*. But they do not well 

 apply to any of the descriptions and accounts quoted or given by 

 Linnseus under Chrysanthemum Indicum. 



I have already referred to the account in the first edition 

 (published in 1753) of the Species Plantarum; but as Linnasus in 

 his second edition t of that work (published in 1762-3) added 

 some references (viz. those to Rheede and Rumphius), which 

 were not in the former, it will be advisable to take the latter 

 publication as the basis of the inquiry. The whole article in it 

 is as follows : 



Chrysanthemum (Indicum) foliis simplicibus ovatis sinuatis angu- 

 latis serratis acutis. 



* The natural time for the flowering of the Chinese Chrysanthemums is during the 

 late autumn months ; but some of the varieties blossom with us in October, and others 

 are scarcely fully open till December; it may therefore be reasonably imagined that the 

 skill of the Chinese, applied to accelerating the period of blossoming in the former case, 

 and retarding it in the latter, may have effected in a great measure the extended period 

 of flowering mentioned by Thunberg and Kaempfer. 



f Species Plantarum, edit. 2. vol. ii. p. 1253. 



Matricaria 



