General Notices. — Foreign Notices. 233 



scarlet, red, purple, and almost any color but blue. White flowers which 

 have a tendency to produce red will never sport to blue, although they 

 will to yellow ; the rose, for example, and chrysanthemums. It is also pro- 

 bable that white flowers wdth a tendency to produce blue, will not vary 

 to yellow. 



Scent varies in degree rather than in nature ; some plants which are 

 but slightly perfumed, as the common China rose, acquire a powerful 

 fragrance when converted to the variety called the sweet-scented ; but 

 there is no decided difference of scent among varieties of the same 

 species. 



Metamorphoses of fruit are very common, and administer largely to 

 the wants of mankind. They consist of alteration in color, size, flavor, 

 scent, and structure. The wild blue sloe of our hedges has, in the course 

 of ages, by successive domestication, been converted into the purple, 

 white, and yellow plums of our desserts. The wild crab is the original 

 from which have sprung the many colored and excellent varieties of 

 apple ; some of which are scentless, others scented like the pine-apple 

 and rose. Li peas the parchment-like lining of the pod occasionally 

 disappears, and the whole substance of the seed-vessel consists of lax 

 succulent membrane. 



Having thus passed in review the irregular metamorphoses of plants 

 through all the different parts, there still remains a subject on which 

 it is requisite to say a few words. This is the permanency of such 

 metamorphoses, or their capability of being perpetuated by seeds. It 

 is a genera] law of nature, that seeds will perpetuate a species, but not a 

 variety ; and this is no doubt true, if rightly considered ; and yet it may 

 be m-ged, if this be so, how have the varieties, well known to gardeners and 

 agricultm'ists, for many years been unceasingly carried on from generation 

 to generation without change ? The long red, and round white radishes of 

 the markets, for instance, have been known, from time immemorial, in the 

 same state in which they now exist. The answer is this : a species will 

 perpetuate itself from seed for ever, under any circumstances, and left to 

 the simple aid of nature ; but accidental varieties cannot be so perpetu- 

 ated : if suffered to become wild, they very soon revert to the form from 

 which they originally sprung. It is necessary that they be cultivated 

 with the utmost care ; that seed should be saved from those individuals 

 only in which the marks of the variety are most distinctly conspicuous; 

 and all plants that indicate any tendency to throw off then* peculiai- 

 characteristics should be rejected. If this be carefully done, the exis- 

 tence of any variety of annual or pei*ennial plant may undoubtedly be 

 prolonged through many generations ; but in woody plants this scarcely 

 happens, it being a rare occurrence to find any variety of tree or shrub 

 producing its like when increased by seed. — [lAnMey's Introd, to Botany.) 



Art. II. Foreign JVotices. 

 ENGLAND. 



jVew Species of the Dahlia. — Mr. Lambert exhibited before the Linnaean 

 Society on November 3d, last, a branch and leaves of an arborescent spe- 



VOL. II. NO. VI. 30 



