Variation of Flowers from Seed. 277 



Among the seedlings of the original sky-blue variety were two or three 

 of a deep cobalt blue. These were all single, with the exception of one, 

 which showed the slightest possible tendency to become double. We care- 

 fully saved all the seed from this one, and raised from it about two hundred 

 young plants. The greater number of these were single and of a bright 

 blue color, some white in the centre, and some black ; but one of them 

 was a superb double flower, with the central petals purple, and the outer 

 petals dark blue. It produced its flowers in immense masses, and grew 

 eight feet high. It bore seed tolerably well ; and we raised from it another 

 generation of seedlings. Most of these proved good for nothing ; but one 

 of them bore flowers which resembled the parent, excepting that the color- 

 ing was brighter, and the flower broader and flatter. The plant was also 

 different in habit, and much weaker in growth. Another among the seed- 

 lings was of a lilac color, but the flower was single ; and we have never 

 succeeded in gaining a double variety of this color. 



To return again to the original seedling. "We raised from it a great num- 

 ber of double varieties of a clear sky-blue, some of which produced in the 

 second generation seedlings almost uniformly like themselves; while others, 

 on the contrary, though to all appearance exactly similar, would rarely give 

 any thing but single flowers. Among their offspring, however, are two or 

 three white double varieties, one of which has a decided tinge of rose, — a 

 color hitherto unknown among the perennial larkspurs. 



To sum up, then, the results : One sky-blue larkspur has produced flowers 

 of a deep blue, of a sky-blue, of blue tinged with rose, of a lilac, of a 

 white, and white tinged with rose ; and these flowers have exhibited diver- 

 sities in form equal to their diversities in color, while the plants have varied 

 in height from two and a half to eight feet, and the foliage has in some 

 cases been so distinct, that the plant might be supposed to belong to a 

 different species. 



