LECTURE ON HYBRID PELARGONIUM GRANDIFLORUM NANUM. 459 
All vegetable life in the grip of death, seeks, with the last strength it 
has, to reproduce and disseminate itself, e.g. the tree which has flowered 
itself to death has, for certain, in the previous year felt the death germ, 
and for that reason used up all possible nourishment, in the forming of 
flower-buds only, which otherwise would have gone to the enlarging and 
strengthening of the whole growth. We can, moreover, still further 
apply the above-mentioned saying, in that we may say, the younger and 
more vigorous a tree is, the poorer the show of blossom; the older and 
more miserable, the richer. Also the other proverb: ‘‘ New seed, much 
growth ; old seed, much fruit,’ is explained by the same fundamental 
principle, in that with age the seed loses, in a recognisable manner, its 
germinating capacity ; it therefore is also an organism which is in the 
grip of death, and will consequently be at more pains to use up less 
strength towards the growth of the plant than for the speedy formation 
of numerous reproducing organisms. 
For this reason I used in my propagating experiments only those 
organisms which were commencing to show signs of decay. 
At the same time I also tried crossing this ‘ Odier-Pelargonium ’ with 
all the other species of pelargonium that I could obtain, in order—if 
possible—to procure an upright form instead of the old straggling bush 
form. 
During the first years of my experiments, I had scarcely any results 
worth mentioning. The seedlings always became taller, some of them 
reached one metre in height before they bloomed, and the results of my 
labours had for the most part to go to the rubbish heap. My colleagues, 
when they visited me, laughed at my extraordinary efforts in culture; yet 
I did not allow myself to be discouraged, but was content with the 
smallest signs of improvement, in the hope that in succeeding generations 
better results would be visible. 
Though the results of my efforts were apparently so poor, they were, 
nevertheless, extremely interesting, and they also kept observation and 
expectancy at the utmost stretch, although the sacrifices involved were 
most discouraging. 
I have quietly continued following the prescribed method, and found 
even in the next generation of seeds a marked advance, which yearly 
became greater and more astonishing, until ultimately I arrived at the 
upright form and my seedlings in the autumn are more like young 
primulas than pelargoniums. The stem has quite disappeared, and only 
a full luxuriant rosette of leaves clothes the pot, in the middle of which 
in the spring, often as early as February, the flower-buds appear. This 
has become the typical form of my strain, of which the principal feature 
consists in the height of their growth being limited and always restricted 
to one central truss, which then forms side-shoots out of all the axils 
of the leaves, which in their turn end in trusses of blooms, so that 
the plant presents a compact low mass of foliage overshadowed by a 
splendid bouquet of bloom. 
In the meanwhile the foliage has also become much more luxuriant ; 
not only thicker, owing to its low growth, but also the individual leaves 
are larger, darker, more succulent, and more vigorous. I consider that 
for these results I am indebted to crossing with zonal pelargoniums. In 
