Production of Double Flowers 509 



double begonias. Others bear only seed on their 

 weaker lateral branches, as the double camomile, 

 or become fertile only towards the fall, as is 

 often the case with the above quoted Erfurt va- 

 riety of the blue-bottle. As far as I have been 

 able to ascertain, such seeds are quite adequate 

 for the reproduction and perpetuation of the 

 double varieties, but the question whether there 

 are differences between the seeds of the more 

 or less double flowers of the same plants still 

 remains open. It is very probable, from a the- 

 oretical point of view, that such differences ex- 

 ist, but perhaps they are so slight, as to have 

 practically no bearing on the question. 



On the ground of their wide range of varia- 

 bility, the double varieties must be regarded as 

 pertaining to the group of ever-sporting forms. 

 On one side they fluctuate in the direction to- 

 wards such petalomanous flowers as are borne 

 by the stocks and others, which we have pre- 

 viously discussed. Here no trace of the fertile 

 organs is left. But this extreme is never reach- 

 ed by petaloid double flowers. A gap remains 

 which, often overlooked, always exists, and 

 which sharply separates the two types. On the 

 other hand the alteration of the stamens grad- 

 ually relapses to perfectly single flowers. Here 

 the analogy with the pistillody of the poppies 

 and with the " five-leaved " clover is obvious. 



