INTRODUCTION xxxv 



beautiful single than double. But there are excep- 

 tions; and a good many double flowers are, at any 

 rate, more durable and stronger in colour than single 

 ones of the same kind. It would be absurd to object 

 to all double flowers on principle, as, for instance, to 

 double Pinks or Roses or Dahlias; but even these 

 may be easily made too double, so that they look 

 stiff or puddingy; while there are other flowers of 

 great natural beauty of form which are entirely spoilt 

 by being doubled. Among these are nearly all bell- 

 shaped flowers. Yet the florists are always producing 

 double varieties of the beautiful Campanula persici- 

 folia, in which all its grace of form is destroyed with- 

 out any improvement in force of colour. To take 

 other instances, the double Begonia looks as if it had 

 been made by some one who had never seen a real 

 flower. The extra petals of the double Day and 

 Tiger Lilies look like mere growths of disease, and 

 even the double China Asters are usually inferior in 

 beauty to the single flowers of the old Aster sinensis, 

 which has only lately come into our gardens again. 

 It is almost safe to say that we have enough double 

 flowers already, and it is quite certain that florists 

 could do much more useful work in other ways than 

 in doubling any more of them. 



The colour of flowers is more a matter of individual 

 taste than their proportion or form; but even with 

 regard to colour one cannot doubt that the florists 

 sometimes make mistakes. There is the case of the 

 perennial Larkspur, for instance. The glory of the 



