OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF RACES. 817 



Camellias, Anemones, Eoses, Cherries, Plums, Kanun- 

 culuses, belong to this class ; and, in proportion as 

 the natural number of stamens diminishes, so do both 

 the disposition to become double, and the beauty of 

 the flowers when altered. The Pink and Carnation 

 "with ten stamens are the handsomest race next to 

 those just mentioned ; while the Hyacinth, the Tulip, 

 the Stock, and the Wallflower with six stamens, and 

 the Auricula and Polyanthus with five, form altoge- 

 ther an inferior race, if symmetry of form, and regu- 

 larity of arrangement in the parts of the flower, are 

 regarded as beauties of the highest order. If the 

 mere circumstance of a plant having but a small num- 

 ber of stamens be a bar to its beauty when made 

 double, how much greater an obstacle to it must be 

 the natural production of unsymmetrical flowers. 

 This occurs in the Snapdragon, which, with a 

 five-lobed corolla, has but four stamens ; and the 

 consequence is, that, when it becomes double, the 

 flower is a confused erbwd of crumpled petals issuing 

 from the original corolla. 



I have heard of attempts to produce double flowers 

 by artificial processes, but I never heard of the 

 smallest success attending such cases, unless the ten- 

 dency to their production had already manifested 

 itself naturally ; as in the Stock, which will frequent- 

 ly become single from having been double, in which 

 case its original double character may be recovered. 

 A mode of effecting this has been described by Mr. 

 James Munro {Gafd. Mag., xiv. 121). Having a 

 number of Single Scarlet Ten-week Stocks, he de- 



