THE CLEMATIS, PEONY, AND ANEMONE FAMILY. 513 



the semi-double flowers which both possess. The latter is, no 

 doubt, the more vigorous in growth,* and it has its flowers 

 larger and more double than those of C. Fortunei conse- 

 quences natural enough, if I am right in this assumption : 

 just as occurred in the white-flowered seedling sport from the 

 lovely blue-flowered Salvia patetis, which never had the vigour 

 of the original form. My theory is, that the sport will some- 

 times retrogress. I had proof of this in that same white Salvia, 

 the seeds of which I sowed, when the seedlings went back into 

 the species, but had flowers of a paler blue. In this way I 

 think I can account for many of those varieties already put 

 out, derived, I assume, from much the same parentage as 

 mine, having the size, colouring, and banding all so different 

 from their parents ; for in all my efforts with this tribe and I 

 began with it, I believe, first in this country, the seeds of my 

 hybrid, C. regina ( C. azurea grandiflora x C. lanuginosd] having 

 been sown in 1855, long before C. Jackmannii, the next, I 

 think, in order, was heard of in all these efforts, and I have 

 been working on it ever since, I could reckon with some confi- 

 dence as to the colours to be produced by crossing, till in this 

 last case I felt bewildered. Now it is very notable that though 

 a white-flowered sport may go back in its seedlings to its orig- 

 inal blue-flowered species, the white may be fixed, or, at least, 

 reproduced in the offspring. Hence I have from seeds of the 

 same head not only the blue and azure flowered varieties above 

 noticed, but the pure white or creamy-white C. Henryi, and 

 others not yet announced. 



" As to the number of the sepals, these vary even in the 

 same group. In that just noticed (lanuginosa-Fortunei\ there 

 are generally six to eight in each flower. To my taste these 

 should stand out straight from the disc, neither incurving nor 

 reflexing." 



A purple variety of Clematis flammula, which it is proposed 

 to distinguish by the name of G flammula roseo-purpurea, has 

 been raised by Mr G. Jackman. Several plants have been 

 observed in a bed of transplanted seedlings of the sweet-scented 

 Clematis, which had been raised from seeds ripened in conti- 

 guity to plants of some of the purple-flowered forms of C. viti- 

 cella. The novelty has, indeed, quite the appearance of being 

 an accidental hybrid between C. flammula and C. viticella, 

 though in regard to free vigorous habit of growth, abundance 

 of flowering, and strongly-marked Hawthorn-like fragrance, it 



* Every cultivator of the Clematis should see Moore and Jackman's 

 ' The Clematis as a Garden Flower,' from which many of the above his- 

 torical remarks have been gleaned. 



2 K 



