APPENDIX. 495 



often transfonned into deserts. Is it, therefore, remarkable that a plant ( 

 introduced from Japan into Europe, exposed to the influences of this , 



great diversity of climate, should produce imperfect sexual organs 

 incapable of further propagating the plant from seeds ? A rich soil, with 

 the necessary amount of moisture, will never engender double flowers."' } 



Mr. Darwin^ describes a peculiar form of Gentiana Ainarella, in which 

 the parts of the flower were more or less replaced by compact aggi*ega- 

 tions of purple scales in great numbers. A similar condition is, indeed, 

 not uncommon in this plant, and, as Mr. Darwin also remarked, on 

 hai*d, diy, bai-e, chalky banks, thus bearing out the views expressed by 

 the writer in the ' Gartenzeitung ' just cited. Some double flowers of N 



Potentilla reptans found growing wild near York, and transmitted to the 

 writer by a coxTCspondent, were observed growing along a high wall, 

 in a dry border, close to a beaten path, bordering on a gravel pit, 

 others were found on a raised bank, which, from its elevation and expo- 

 sure to the sun, was particularly dry. 



On the other hand, the double-flowered Cardamine pratensis, which is 

 occasionally found in a wild state, always grows in veiy wet places. 



Of late years a remarkable double-flowered race of Frimula sinensis 

 has been obtained. In particular, Messrs. Windebank and Kingsbury, 

 of Southampton, have succeeded in raising a set of plants in which the 

 flowers are very double and vei-y attractive in a florist's point of view. 

 The corollas in these flowers are not merely duplicated, but from their 

 inner surface spring, in some cases, funnel-shaped or tubular petals 

 (p. 315), so regular in form as quite to resemble a perfect corolla. These 

 tubes are attached to the inner side of the tube of the corolla, in the 

 same way as are the stamens, these latter organs being, it appears, 

 absent. The carpels are present, but open at the top, and bear nume- 

 rous ovnles, hence it was at first surmised that these plants were 

 obtained and perpetuated, by the application of pollen from single 

 flowers to these double- flowered varieties. 



The raisers of this fine race however assert that " the double kinds 

 are all raised from the seed obtained from single flowers ; the double 

 blooms do not produce seed, as a inile, and even if they did yield seed, 

 and it were to germinate, the plants so raised would simply produce 

 single flowers." Semi-double flowers will produce seed, but it is neces- 

 sary that they should be fertilised with the pollen from the single 

 blooms. They rarely, however, if ever, produce really double flowers 

 when so fertilised, and the number of semi-double flowers, even, is 

 always small, the remainder, and, consequently, the larger part, i 

 proving single. To obtain double varieties, the raiser fertilises certain I 

 fine and striking single flowers, with the pollen of other equally fine I 



Otto's Gartenzeitung,' 1866. 

 Card. Chron.,' 1843, p. 628. 



