50 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and two of Sicily. Linnaeus makes these four native sorts pi'ett}' 

 plain. It is possible that there were but the two of which De Can- 

 clolle speaks, %\\e pmynreus and the roseus, and that the other two 

 are variations of these. 



The purpureus must have been very nearly like our common 

 light blue and purple of the trade, for this is perhaps the com- 

 monest " rogue '' to which the new sorts revert. It comes into the 

 growers' fields everywhere. Then the original of the old Painted 

 Lady, the pretty pink and white that everybody loves, must have 

 been the native Ceylon variety called roseiis. But there was an 

 original red sort, and it appears to have come from Sicily with 

 the purple. The roseus from Ceylon seems to have varied from 

 pink and white to white. Going back thirty years from toda}' to 

 the beginning of the work on the modern Sweet Pea, we find these 

 four originals, which probably show but little change from 1700 

 to 1860. I suspect that these original sorts broke into red and 

 purple striped a good while ago. Call them varieties, and as 

 late, say, as 1860 there could only have been the original purple, 

 red, pink and white, white and red striped, and purple striped. 

 Indeed when you study the seed business you very quickly get 

 from modern history into ancient, and even the length of one 

 generation will take us into that dim past. But the last thirty 

 years have been a revelation and an opening era. 



The first note of improved work on the Sweet Pea that I have 

 states that Brown of Sudbury, England, received a certificate on 

 Invincible Scarlet in 1865. It was put out by Carter of London. 

 Then in 1867 we find the first improvement on the original purple, 

 being given the name Imperial Purple, and leading the way to 

 the Black. 



About this time it appears that Cattell, of Westerham, had 

 worked on the red striped and put it out under the name of the 

 ■Queen. The next step was the introduction of the Crown Prin- 

 cess of Prussia, the mother of light, flesh-pink Sweet Peas, by 

 Haage & Schmidt, of Erfurt, about 1868. Later the Violet 

 Queen, put out by Carter, and then the Butterfl}-, by Sutton, in 

 1878. Carter put out the names Invincible Black and Invincible 

 Scarlet Striped about 1880. Soon followed Lilacina Splendens. 

 now a doubtful variety, although we still have the name Splendid 

 Lilac. I suspect this latter is what more commonly became the 

 ■Captain Clarke. The next decided ac<iuisition of color was 



