16 



state with bright red petiils. From the foregoing it will be 

 seen that yellow to red is a very common and natural suc- 

 cession of color, especially if the red be a vermilion or 

 scarlet. Kni])hofia or Tritoma, the Flame Flower, retro- 

 grades from scarlet to yellowy the young flowers at the top 

 being scarlet, and the older at the lower end of the spike 

 being yellow. 



In view of the above well-established facts regarding the 

 order of color change, it is truly astounding that Grant 

 Allen should make a statement so glaringly erroneous as 

 the following, which ignores nearly one-half our choicest 

 and best known blossoms : 



"As flowers advance in type the}' pass from yellow, which 

 is the lowest color, through white, pink, red, and lilac to 

 purple and blue, which are the highest. And wdien through 

 any special cause they begin to retrogress, they pass back- 

 ward through the same stages in inverse order" ! 



Grant Allen recognizes two compound colors, lilac and 

 purple, in his scale, but utterly ignores others, such as 

 orange, scarlet, brown, brown-purple, green and other of 

 the second series above mentioned, and his sequence is one 

 only of two wdiich are equally imjiortant, not mentioning 

 others of less occurrence. 



