HARDWICKE'S SCIEN CE-GOSSIP. 



131 



VARIATION 0¥ COLOURS IN ELO^VERS. 



THE variation of colour in the flowers of plants 

 is a subject which, although generally of 

 much interest to observers residing in the country, 

 has hardly, perhaps, been treated with a fair 

 amount of attention by those who investigate 

 deeply the conditions of life under which plants are 

 found. In the hope that some examination of this 

 matter may be made by those whose studies have 

 peculiarly fitted them for such research, and in the 

 belief that such examination would not be without 

 its results as regards the explanation of the causes 

 and reasons for such variation, I desire to record 

 an instance of a cliange from the normal colour 

 which I venture* to think is very uncommon, and, 

 as far as I have been able to search, wholly unre- 

 corded, at all events as occurring in the indigenous 

 plant. With three exceptions, none of the authors, 

 British or foreign, wliose works I have been able 

 to consult, make the slightest reference to a 

 coloured perianth in Convallaria majalls. The 

 exceptions are Gerard, who says (Johnson's edition, 

 p. 410, incorrectly numbered 3S6) : " The seconde 

 kinde of May Lillies is like the former in every 

 respect, and herein varieth or differeth [Mark the 

 difficulty at this early date in deciding upon the 

 question — species, or variety?] in that this kinde hath 

 reddish lloures, and is thought to have the sweeter 

 smell," and " the other kinde with the red floure is 

 a stranger in England : howbeit I have the same 

 growing in my garden." Next, Martyn who, in his 

 edition of Miller's " Gardeners' Dictionary," has the 

 following passage :— " A fourth with reddish or red 

 flowers : this Mr. Miller affirms continued the same 

 aboveforty years [apparentlyin the Chelsea garden] : 

 the flowers are smaller, the stalks redder, and the 

 leaves of a darker green than in the common sort." 

 And lastly. Sir James Edward Smith in the " English 

 Flora," 2nd edition, vol. ii. p. 154, says : " There are 

 varieties with double, or with purple flowers, some- 

 times seen in gardens, but not easy of cultivation." 

 In May last year the Rev. W. Tuckwell, Head 

 Master of Taunton school, very kindly went with 

 Mr. F, J. Hanbury and myself for a few hours to 

 the Quantock Hills ; and in one of the lovely combes 

 for which those hills are so well known, he took us 

 to one of two patches of Convallaria majalis bearing 

 rose-coloured flowers which were known to him in 

 that locality. The time of flowering was almost over 

 at the date of our visit, tlie 15th May ; but enough 

 blossoms were left to afford ample evidence that 

 the aberration of colour from the pure white of 

 ordinary " lilies of the valley " was no slight or 

 accidental eccentricity of tint but a definite and 

 strongly-marked change. 



* Verlot, as quoted by Mr. Darwin in his work on the 

 variation of animals and plants uiiQer domestication, seys 

 "that flowers which are normally white, rarely vary into 

 any other colour." 



The colour of the perianth was a full-pink, inclin- 

 ing to rose, with no trace of any purple tint. The 

 patch of plants was of very considerable extent, and 

 a like patch bearing similar flowers was known to 

 Mr. Tuckwell in, I believe, the same combe. The 

 plants had every appearance of being indigenous, 

 and I am not aware of any fact which would throw 

 doubt upon their being so. Mr. Watson, in his 

 " Cybele Britannica," vol. ii. p. 467, states that " in 

 the Peninsula and Channel provinces, it [Convallaria 

 majalis] would seem to be quite local, and indi- 

 genous only in the counties of Somerset and Wilts;" 

 there is therefore little probability, if any, that this 

 rose-coloured variety is an escape from cultivation, 

 even if it is a variety known to be cultivated. The 

 remarkably red colour of the soil— Devonian or 

 Old lied Sandstone— where the plants grow, 

 offered a temptingly easy explanation of the cause 

 of the colour in the flowers, and I am not altogether 

 disposed to throw aside this idea, though probably 

 there are few facts which could be adduced as 

 evidence in favour of such a theory, the change 

 in the colour of Hydrangeas, ascribed by some 

 gardeners to growth in peculiar soil, being, though 

 very remarkable, often capricious and certainly not 

 permanent. 



I know of no instance amongst indigenous 

 British plants of a change in the flower from pure 

 white to any shade of pure red, such as we have in 

 this Convallaria except, perhaps, in Silene pratensis 

 and Cratagus oxyacantha, and in the curious- 

 coloured central floret of Daucus carota, though 

 possibly there is some tendency to variation in 

 colour in the perianths of liliaceous plants. 



I do not find that my specimens of this Convallaria 

 difl'er in any material respect from the descriptions 

 of Convallaria majalis or from the specimens in my 

 herbarium, though some from '" Overton hills, 

 Cheshire," present a marked contrast of habit, the 

 limb of the leaves of the Cheshire plants springing 

 from the leaf-stalk at little more than an inch from 

 its base, whilst in my plants from the Quantocks, 

 and also in some from the Vosges mountains, the 

 limb of the leaves springs from four to six inches 

 from the base of the leaf-stalk. 



Miller's statement that the flowers of his plants 

 were "smaller, the stalks redder, and the leaves of 

 a darker green than in the common sort," affords 

 hardly any good character even for a variety, but 

 certainly the membranous sheaths of the Quantocks 

 plant are more or less highly-coloured red and the 

 leaves are very deep green. 



1 have placed some plants in my garden, and I 

 hope to see whether or not the change of soil will 

 affect the colour. 



Perhaps Mr. Tuckwell could, as I have been 

 expecting him to do, give some information regard- 

 ing this curious plant. Fred. Sxkattox. 



Newport, Isle of Wight. 



