RISE OF THE FANCY PANSY 7 



ease, self-sown, and hitherto left to waste its beauty far from 

 mortal's eye. I immediately took it up and gave it a local 

 habitation and a name. This first child of the tribe I 

 called Madora, and from her bosom came the seed which, 

 after various generations, produced Victoria, who in her 

 turn became the mother of many even more beautiful than 

 herself." We here see the transition from the rays or pen- 

 cillings on the petals, to blotches. The rays are supposed 

 to be guide lines for insects, to guide them to the pollen 

 and nectar of the flower. As they disappeared, would the 

 blotches be found by the little marauders less convenient ? 

 In any case, it is a known fact that the cultivated forms of 

 the Pansy seed less freely than the wild types. 



From 1841 onwards it became the ambition of the florists 

 to develop in the Pansy the following qualities : a perfect 

 outline, well-defined blotches and margins, greater substance, 

 clearer and yet deeper colours. By 1880, the heyday of 

 the Show Pansy, these qualities were well-nigh obtained. 



THE RISE OF THE FANCY PANSY 



Professor V. B. Wittrock, of Stockholm, wrote as 

 follows in the Gardeners' Chronicle for June 13, 1896 : 

 " In the early thirties the English Pansy was intro- 

 duced into France, and was cultivated there by skilful 

 horticulturists, who took great pains in further im- 

 proving it. In Belgium they also strove to improve 



