42 breck's new book of flowers. 



est attention, has divided the colors of flowers into two 

 series, the Xanthic, and the Cyanic as follows : 



red 

 orange red. 



Xanthic or oxidized series { 'n* * 



orange yellow. 



yellow. 



yellow green. 



Color of leaves. Green. 



( greenish blue. 

 I blue. 



Cyanic or deoxidized series < ^^^ ^ ^^^'. , 



I violet red. 

 t red- 



founded on a memoir of Messrs. Schubler and Funk, inih- 

 lished at Tubingen, in Germany, in 1825, where it is stated 

 that all flo\\^ers may be divided into two classes, one hav- 

 ing the yellow color for its type ; these are incapable of 

 passing into blue, but into every shade of red and white ; 

 the other having the blue color for its type, wliich can also 

 pass into every shade of red and white, but never into 

 yellow; thus, for instance, the Potentilla, a little yellow 

 flower like the butter-cup, which abounds everywhere, 

 trailing along the ground, has been found of difierent 

 shades of red, but never blue ; the China Aster which has 

 every tinge of red, blue, is never yellow ; the Dahlia is 

 never blue, but often yellow and red." 



" It will have been remarked that white is omitted from 

 these two series. It may be doubted, indeed, whether it 

 really exists in a state of purity in flowers, and it seems to 

 be rather some other color reduced to an exceedingly light 

 tint. Redoute, the French flower-painter, is said to have 

 availed liimself with great advantage of this fact. He al- 

 ways j^laced the flower he wished to represent before a 

 sheet of paper like that on which he had made his draw- 



