328 GENERAL REVIEW. 



functions of vegetative growth. A young green leaf, or a varie- 

 gated leaf with green in it, might possibly be grafted or inarched 

 on the albino itself by a clever operator. 



Double -/lowered Varieties. The double Geraniums, which 

 have attained a popularity far greater than they deserve, 

 although usually classed as "zonal," are apparently derived 

 both from P. zonale and P. inquinans. Although of com- 

 paratively recent introduction to this country, they have long 

 been known on the Continent. A deputation of the Caledo- 

 nian Horticultural Society of Edinburgh made a tour through 

 parts of Flanders, Holland, and northern France in the 

 autumn of 1817, and in Patrick Neill's journal of its observa- 

 tions is the following passage : " An ornamental variety of Pel- 

 argonium inquinans, with double flowers, is very common at 

 Ghent, no fewer than ten different competitors having exhibited 

 flowering specimens of it at the last festival." M. Jean Sisley 

 says that M. Lecoq, of Clermont-Ferrand, had a double zonal 

 Pelargonium named Triomphe de Gergovia in cultivation 

 several years previous to 1867. Pollen from this variety was 

 used by M. Lemoine to fertilise the fine pink zonal, Beaute de 

 Suresnes, and from this union the well-known double, Gloire 

 de Nancy, was obtained in 1865. The first double white, 

 Aline Sisley, was obtained in 1872 by M. Sisley, who has since 

 raised other very fine white, scarlet, and rosy varieties. Mr T. 

 Laxton, of Stamford, has also raised some very fine double- 

 flowered varieties one of the best, Jewel, having vivid deep 

 scarlet florets exactly like Senateur Vaisse Rose in miniature. 



Jewel was raised from seed of Madame Rose Charmeux a 

 French double form of the Tom Thumb or P. inquinans type 

 crossed with Lord Derby, a single scarlet zonal. Madame 

 Rose Charmeux is, as Mr Laxton informs me, a very full flower; 

 and except under starvation and at certain seasons, generally 

 early in the year, it is difficult to obtain seed from this variety. 

 Most of the other double varieties obtained by Mr Laxton are 

 from Mr W. Paul's double-scarlet Cottingtoni, which, being 

 only partially double, seeds freely. This variety is the seed- 

 parent of Aurora, and all others of that type, including Emily 

 Laxton. Both Madame Rose Charmeux and Cottingtoni are 

 sports from Tom Thumb,, and their progeny does not cross 

 kindly with the old doubles of the P. zonale section. " It is 

 very singular," .writes Mr Laxton, " that while the crosses of 

 Madame Rose Charmeux hardly ever produce offspring less 

 double, although sometimes more so, than the parent, unless, 

 indeed, they foll6w the single male parent altogether in this 

 respect, and are themselves quite single, on the other hand, 



