Arthur W. Hill 195 



white sport of P. malacoides (PI. XI, Fig. 3) and informed ns that they 

 had also a " deep mauve quite distinct from the type." 



The flowers of the white sport measured only 1 cm. across, the 

 corolla segments were narrow, only 4 mm. broad at the apex and almost 

 oblong with a shallow notch. The eye was deep yellow. The calyces 

 were very mealy and the inflorescences much more slender than in the 

 type. 



Messrs Bees, Ltd, who also had the white sport, remarked that the 

 habit of the plant is very distinct fro-ra that of the rose-coloured form, 

 the inflorescences being much more erect and the distances between 

 the whorls of flowers much shorter. The flowers of the white form 

 sent by them to Kew measured 2 cm. across, whilst the largest lilac 

 flowers measured 2*5 cm. The more robust character attained by the 

 plant in its fifth year of cultivation is well shewn in the figure in The 

 Garden for March 30, 1912, p. 1-57. 



In this same year P. malacoides also produced double flowers for 

 the first time, and this sport occurred among a large batch of plants 

 grown by Mr L. R. Russell at his Cedar Nursery, Ham, Surrey (PI. XI, 

 Figs. 5—12 ; PI. XII, Figs. 2 and 3). All stages in the doubling of the 

 flowers were noticed, and on the same inflorescence in some plants every 

 gradation from single to fully double flowers could be found. The 

 doubling is like that of the old double white P. sinensis and of P. ob- 

 conica, being due to out-growths from the apex of the connective of 

 the anther resulting in a " hose-in-hose " type of flower. In the best 

 cases one or more whorls of extra segments have been developed, each 

 segment having the characteristic apical notch. 



A good figure of the double form was given in The Garden of 

 Dec. 13, 1913, p. 624, from a plant grown by Messrs Bees, Ltd, and 

 the sport appears to have originated in Cheshire independently of its 

 appearance at Messrs Russell's nursery ^ 



The double white variety was produced at Kew as a result of crossing 

 the double lilac with the single white form and flowered in 1915. This 

 spring (1917) Messrs W. and J. Brown of Stamford, showed double white-, 

 double lilac and double mauve forms at a meeting of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society. 



* Although the double form of P. malacoides originated first with Messrs Russell in 1912 

 it was Messrs Bees' plant shown at the meeting of the R. H. S. on December 2, 1913, which 

 received an Award of Merit, see G. C. March 14, 1914, p. 180. 



2 A figure of the double white form is given in Gardeners^ Chronicle, March 2, 1918, 

 p. 91, and the foliage of the plant is distinctly " fern-like." 



