4 56 What constitutes a Florist's Flower? 



ations, and to remove them from the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the original species, to which they always have a tendency more 

 or less to retreat. The carnation is a familiar example of this, 

 for the pure white ground colour of many varieties gradually 

 becomes flushed with pink, and ultimately changes to dark 

 crimson, which, in most cases, defies all the art of the florist to 

 change ao-ain to white. Vegetable physiologists are undecided 

 as to the causes of these variations, but the most generally re- 

 ceived opinion among florists is, that, in the case of the carnation, 

 the running back to the original colour of the species is occa- 

 sioned by the application of too powerful stimulants in the culti- 

 vation. 



The changes and varieties in the colours of flowers are in- 

 numerable, and constitute, as we have before said, one of the 

 chief charms of florist's flowers. No cause is assigned, but 

 there appear to exist certain fixed laws by which colour is 

 affected ; as the carnation, which in its pristine state is crimson, 

 becomes, by cultivation, white, slate-coloured, and dull yellow, 

 but never blue, and seldom bright yellow; and the dahlia in- 

 cludes varieties of almost every shade of colour, except blue. 



Besides changes in form and colour, florist's flowers undergo 

 transmutations of various organs; for instance, in order to render 

 carnations and pinks double a multiplication of petals takes 

 place, and the stamens are expanded and become petaloid ; the 

 rose is rendered double by a multiplication of petals; and the 

 anemone by a regular series of transformations of all the organs, 

 from the sepals to the pistil. 



Florist's flowers, of late years, have been very much improved 

 by cross-impregnation, not only between varieties of the same 

 species, but also between two distinct kinds. Had not Fiola 

 tricolor been crossed with V. altaica and others, our gardens 

 would never have been decorated with large round heartseases 

 of every imaginable hue and combination of colours. Cross- 

 impregnation, in addition to altering the properties of the 

 flower, occasions a considerable change in the habits of plants ; 

 thus the large fine flowers that are produced on tall diffusive- 

 growing plants may, by careful hybridisation, be produced on 

 dwarf thickset plants ; and bright-coloured flowers without a 

 dark spot to relieve them, may have the spot given them by 

 carefully crossing them with some allied spotted kinds. Now 

 that the theory of hybridisation is so well understood, a vast 

 untrodden plain lies open to the florist, which, in the course of a 

 few years, will doubtless be productive of many unexpected 

 novelties ; new races will be springing up every day, and the 

 already numerous varieties of plants increased ten-fold. As 

 proof of this, we have only to look at the numbers of new roses 

 and calceolarias that are brought into notice every season. A 



