BREVITIES. 161 



ation of more vigorous organs of reproduction. The compara- 

 tively monstrous calyx which has been slowly developing for 

 forty years would be the last to follow in the wake of their degra- 

 dation, as it was the last to emerge and conform to an enlarged 

 corolla. Nature's supreme concern is the continued life of a 

 species. If one mode, or process of life continuance is lost, nature 

 instinctively substitutes some other mode for self continuance. 



Carnations are a horticultural form of the primitive Dianthus 

 Caryophillus. Their flowers are sterilized by the artificial multi- 

 plication of their petals. Nature facilitates their continuance by 

 dis-articulations, or easily rooted cuttings. This process was 

 deemed impossible before Alegatiere's time and is not yet prac- 

 ticed in Europe. 



There is a pseudomorphous unlining of the inner series or 

 whorls of floral leaves. The multiplication of the petals is at the 

 expense of the fertile stamens and pistils. This modification ob- 

 tained by selective breeding has not so easily affected the calyx 

 or outer whorl. The calyx was not quickly involved in the 

 evolutionary line taken by other parts of the carnation flower. 

 It made a slower deflection from its primal type. 



The natural and primitive capacity of a tubular carnation 

 calyx was to hold only the long slender claws of five petals. 

 Artificial development of the flower demanded of it a capacity to 

 hold the broad fleshy leaves, and short thick claws of fifty petals. 

 As an organ, the calyx was not in the evolutionary swim with 

 other parts of the flower. The calyx did not keep synchronal step 

 with the unfoldment of the petals. 



This disproportionate development of the different whorls of 

 floral leaves is not unusual in flowers. The sepals are augmented 

 in the ranunculus; stamens in the cactus; and the pistils in the 

 wild buttercup, and the petals in the carnations. Carnations' 

 calyxes rupture at the seam of union between the sepals. The 

 leaf is a primal organ of a plant, the sepals of the calyx are 

 slightly modified leaves of the plant, retaining the texture, chloro- 

 phyl, etc., of the true leaf, hence a greater resistance to change, a 



