FOUR COMMON FLOWERS 167 



Aside from its fragrance, the Mayflower was 

 an interesting type of verbena, owing to its size 

 and prolific blooming habit and the beauty of its 

 flowers. But seedlings grown from the plant 

 could not be depended upon to produce flowers 

 that would reproduce the Mayflower fragrance. 

 Indeed they could not be depended on to repro- 

 duce any particular characteristic of the parent 

 plant. 



Seedlings of the Mayflower produced plants 

 bearing blossoms of almost every color — scarlet, 

 crimson, pure white, yellow, deep cobalt blue, 

 and purplish. But not one of the many thou- 

 sands raised afterward had the delightful flavor 

 of the Mayflower. 



The Mayflower Accounted For 



As might be inferred from its variability, the 

 fragrant verbena was a very complicated hybrid. 

 It was the outcome of hybridizing experiments 

 in which I had utilized all the various races of the 

 plant under cultivation. I had not only grown 

 and crossed the ones that are offered in the 

 seed catalogues, but also secured seeds from 

 all four of the original species from which the 

 cultivated verbenas have been developed, col- 

 lected from wild plants in North and South 

 America. 



