PRESENT-DAY GARDENING 



petals, shown in the figure. By some growers in those days, 

 even by Thompson himself, the blotch on the under petal 

 was called an eye. This is erroneous, as the eye is the 

 little yellow or golden semicircle on the under petal, on 



the top of which rests the 

 stigma. In the illustration, re- 

 produced from the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle of 1841, the flower 

 shows the beginnings of the 

 blotches. They had no doubt 

 been in process of develop- 

 ment for several years and 

 were being fixed by selection. 

 It is interesting to quote 

 Thompson on this point. 



Writing about his work, he says up to this time (somewhere 

 in the thirties) "a dark eye (blotch), which is now con- 

 sidered one of the chief requisites in a first-rate flower, had 

 never been seen. Indeed, such a feature had never entered 

 my imagination, nor can I take any merit to myself for 

 originating this peculiar property, for it was entirely 

 the offspring of chance. In looking one morning over 

 a collection of heaths, which had been some time ne- 

 glected, I was struck, to use a vulgar expression, all of 

 a heap, by seeing what appeared to me a miniature cat's 

 face steadfastly gazing at me. It was the flower of a Heart's- 



