CLASSIFICATION AND SELECTION 141 



filled center is considered a defect. In all probability 

 the formal stiffness characterizing the type has militated 

 against its popularity in America, but the class is 

 always well represented at the English exhibitions. 

 One variety, however, belonging in this class that at- 

 tained great prominence, both as an exhibition and a 

 commercial flower, is Major Bonnaffon. Other examples 

 are: Empress of India, Lord Alcester, W. Higgs, 

 Charles CtfHis, Golden Empress, Lady Isabel, Mrs. 

 H. J. Jones, Mrs. W. Higgs and Mme. Lucie Faure. 



Section 2. Japanese varieties. 



The progenitors of this class were regarded with 

 disfavor when first introduced from the Orient, on 

 account of their loose, ragged form, but the evolution 

 of the type has given us a great class which, more than 

 any other, has won for the Chrysanthemum its present 

 day popularity. 



The characteristics of the class are large flowers, 

 having, sometimes, long petals loosely arranged and 

 intertwined into a high globular flower, as in Cheltoni 

 (Fig. 28) or Ben Wells. In other varieties the petals 

 are long, broad, reflexed and dependent, as in F. S. 

 Vallis or Soleil d'Octobre (Fig. 29), and again there 

 are varieties of great size whose petals incurve, building 

 up an enormous symmetrical flower, as in Wm. Duck- 

 ham (Fig. 30), and still others that neither fully 

 incurve nor reflex, except in slight degree, the shorter 

 petals being mostly erect with slight curvature at the 

 tips, as in Timothy Eaton and Mrs. Henry Robinson 

 (Fig. 31). Everything of great size, in consequence, 

 goes into the Japanese class, and such variability of 

 form is found there as to make classification by form 

 difficult. It has been, in a measure, simplified, by 

 creating two classes out of the Japanese, one of which is 



