HISTORY OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM 155 



quent extinction. At the present day, however, these 

 once neglected kinds stand in the first rank as decora- 

 tive plants, and finer and still finer varieties make their 

 appearance every year. Mr. Salter, in 1865, lamented 

 that some of the best original Chinese tasseled kinds 

 were wholly lost. Of those then grown, however, he 

 mentions Golden Lotus, Quilled Pink, Tasseled White, 

 Tasseled Yellow, Two-colored Incurved, and Yellow 

 Waratahf Where are these kinds now ? Lost, no doubt, 

 in. the race after novelty. One Japanese kind which 

 Mr. Salter tried to bring home was unfortunately lost 

 on the way. This had its florets edged very beautifully 

 with a hair-like fringe. Writing from a florist's point 

 of view in 1S65, Mr. Salter says: "The form of the 

 flower has become so beautiful that it seems scarcely 

 possible any amount of cultivation can improve it, but 

 both size and color may be augmented/' 



Kow we have, however, form more perfect, colors 

 more vivid, and size considerably augmented by im- 

 proved methods of culture, if not also by actual seminal 

 variation. In the modern Japanese varieties we have 

 form and color of the most beautiful, and also another 

 valuable quality, many of them blooming a month 

 later than the other kinds, and so we can extend the 

 Chrysanthemum season by their aid. 



A blue Rose may be an impossibility, but we are 

 told that a variety of the Chrysanthemum exists in 

 Japan with blue flowers. It is represented very fre- 

 quently on Japanese porcelain, both ancient and modern, 

 especially that of Satsuma and Kioto ; it also appears on 

 cloisonne enamels and embroidery. In the "History 

 of Nin-toku-ten-wau" the following passage occurs: 

 "In 386, in the seventy-third year of his reign, seeds 

 of the Chrysanthemum were first introduced into Japan 

 from a foreign country, both blue, yellow, red, white 



