FOUR COMMON FLOWERS AND 

 THEIR IMPROVEMENT 



RESULTS OF WORK ON THE VERBENA, THE 



PINK, THE PETUNIA, AND THE 



GERANIUM 



PERHAPS the most interesting Verbena 

 ever produced was the one named the May- 

 flower. I use the past tense because I am 

 not sure that any representative of the variety 

 named Mayflower is now in existence. I have 

 introduced the plant through a prominent horti- 

 culturist, but he apparently found it difficult to 

 reproduce it with sufficient rapidity from cut- 

 tings and so attempted to propagate it more 

 rapidly from seed. 



Unfortunately the verbenas are so mixed, and 

 the various races so little fixed, that they do not 

 breed true from the seed. And so when I sent 

 to the horticulturist for a sample of the fragrant 

 Mayflower verbena a few years later, I received 

 a plant that had but a reminiscence of the dis- 

 tinguishing quality of the original. 



163 



