FOUR COMMON FLOWERS 169 



The hybridizing experiments that ultimately 

 gave us the garden verbena were carried out less 

 than a century ago, but in the meantime the 

 strains have been so blended that it would be im- 

 possible for the most part to trace the character- 

 istics of any given form of cultivated verbena 

 with certainty. But it is obvious that the hy- 

 bridizers and those who further developed the 

 plant b}^ selection were chiefly influenced by form 

 and color, as has been the case with so many other 

 flowers, and paid little attention to the question 

 of fragrance. 



The verbena has been made to develop won- 

 derfully symmetrical clusters, and its flowers 

 have taken on the most gaudy hues. But in the 

 main, as already pointed out, the odor even of the 

 most beautiful specimens is disagreeable rather 

 than attractive. 



Yet one of the wild parents, as we have just 

 noted, was fragrant; and our previous studies of 

 heredity give us full assurance that the factors 

 for fragrance must be retained in some at least of 

 the hybrid progeny, and will now and again make 

 themselves more or less manifest. That such is 

 really the case, my fragrant verbena clearly 

 enough demonstrates. To be sure, its fragrance 

 is not that of the original. Some slight chemical 

 modifications have taken place, doubtless through 



