142 FLOWER-GARDENING. 



bers (thinning), or by both. The business of the primer is to 

 cause these by his operation. 



173. The beauty of flowers depends upon their free exposure 

 to light and air, because it consists in the richness of their 

 colors, and their colors are only formed by the action of these 

 two agents (281). 



174. Hence flowers produced in dark or shaded confined 

 situations are either imperfect or destitute of their habitual 

 size and beauty. 



175. Double flowers are those in which the stamens are 

 transformed into petals ; or in which the latter, or the sepals, 

 are multiplied. They should not be confounded with Prolife- 

 rous (183) and Discoid Compound Flowers (184). 



176. Although no certain rules for the production of double 

 flowers can be laid down, yet it is probable that those flowers 

 have the greatest tendency to become double in which the 

 sexes are habitually multiplied. 



177. In Icosandrous and Polyandrous plants either the 

 stamens or the pistilla are always very numerous when the 

 flowers are in a natural state ; and it is chiefly in such plants 

 that double flowers occur when they become transformed. 



178. It is therefore in such plants that double flowers are to 

 be principally expected. 



179. In proportion as the sexes of flowers habitually become 

 few in number, do the instances of double flowers become rare. 



180. Double flowers are therefore least to be expected in 

 plants with fewest stamens. 



181. "Whenever the component parts of a flower adhere by 

 their edges, as in monophyllous calyxes, monopetalous corollas, 

 and monadelphous, or di-, or poly-adelphous stamens, the 

 tendency to an unnatural multiplication of parts seems checked. 



182. Therefore, in such cases, double flowers are little to be 

 expected ; they are, in fact, very rare. 



183. Proliferous flowers are those in which parts that usually 

 have all their axillary buds dormant accidentally develop 

 such buds ; as in the Hen and Chickens Daisy, in which the 



