THE ROSE AND ITS CULTURE. 



179 



batility of sports follows as a matter of coui'se. Bud- 

 variation, though not so common as that of seeds, 

 being exposed to far fewer disturbing causes, never- 

 theless exists, and may develop at any time into a 

 sport that is some more or less striking variation 

 from the ordinary type. In the present state of our 

 knowledge, sports cannot be produced by art : fortu- 

 nately, however, they can be fixed and perpetuated 

 by the ordinary means of propagation. Some have 

 thought that high cult\u-e may force sports. Be 

 that as it may, a starving regimen seems the best 

 for perpetuating them. And this is especially 

 so in regard to all sports that take the form of 

 variegated leaves. Most forms of variegation can be 

 grown into verdure again by a forcing regimen. This 

 fact furnishes a useful hint to the rosarian. So soon 

 as a sport appears on the highway of evolution to- 

 wards something better in size, form, substance, and 

 colour, the plant should be left to finish its new 

 departiu'e in its own waj', and no changes of treat- 

 ment nor of food given 'till it has fixed its sport. 

 Only once have I seen the old Cineraria maritima 

 show a real golden sport, yellow as a guinea. The 

 plant was at once lifted and placed in heat to force 

 the golden branch into cuttings : from that moment 

 it lost its gold, and went back to its normal whiteness 

 with a double percentage of green in it. From that 

 day to this I have never again met with a, good 

 golden sport on the old Cineraria.' The sports of 

 Pelargoniums, again, are well known. Perhaps the 

 most striking example of this sporting family wUl be 

 found in P. . Vesuvius, one of the most brilliant of all 

 the scarlets, which has sported into a pure white, a 

 variegated-flowered, white and scarlet; a double- 

 flowered sort, weU called " "Wonderful," and many 

 others. Sports, however, are occasionally produced 

 in almost all families of plants. Prom a full list of 

 Roses originating in sports, in Carriere's work on the 

 production and fixation of some varieties in vegeta- 

 tion, it seems that far more Roses have originated 

 thus than is generally supposed. Carriere's list is 

 as follows : — 



From, Rosa ccTitiyoUa.— Cabbage-leaved variety; Lettuce- 

 leaved variety ; Celery-leaved variety ; Anemone de 

 Nancy {the town of the painters) ; Flore magna or /olioceo, 

 without petals ; White Unique ; Variegated Unique 

 (striped) ; Pompon de BourgogAe ; Pompon Blanc 

 (white) ; Pompon de Bordeaux ; Pompon de Kingston. 



From the Moss JBose.— Cristata ; ordinary Centifolia, white 

 flower ; ordinary Centifolia, striped flower ; ordinary 

 Centifoha, Sage-leaved ; Provence ; Unique Zee ; Pompon 

 Moss. 



From, tM Rosier du, Eoi.— Perpetuelle Bernard; Eosier du 

 Eoi (long-stalked variety) ; Madame Tellier ; Mogodor ; 

 Captain Benard ; Coelina (sic) Dubos. 



From, Rosier de la Reine. — Belle Normande ; Madame Cambel 

 d'Isly (sic), probably Campbell of Islay, or Triomphe 

 de ValeucienueB. 



from Duchesse de Cum&actires. — Belle de Printemps, 



Prom Baronne Preuoat.— Madame D^sir^e Giraud ; Panach(5e 



d'Orl^ans ; Baronne Provost Harbre'e ; Madame La- 



chorme ; and one unnamed variety, paler in colour than 



the type, but not otherwise different. 

 Prom Bwihesse d'Orleans. — ScBur des Anges, 

 From Quatre Saisons. — Bosier Thionville, or White Moss 



Quatre Saisons. 

 From the Provence. — Pompon St. Fran9ois ; Pompon St. 



Jacques ; Camaien j Panache, semi-douhle ; Tricolore de 



Flandre, 

 from the DamAiski — York and Lancaster ; variety with 



bullate leaves. 

 From the Bengal. — Variety with striped wood. 

 Prom Rosa alba. — ^Variety with Hemp-like leaves. 



Among the later examples are the pink Gloire de 

 Dijon, from the common or yellow variety, about 

 which, however, there is still some degree of doubt ; 

 Baron Taylor, a pink sport from John Hopper ; Pride 

 of Waltham, a salmon-pink sport from the Comtesse 

 of Oxford; William Warden, a pink sport fi'om 

 Madame Clemence Joigneaux ; and Mabel Morrisson, 

 Merveille de Lyon, and White Baroness, the latter 

 two certainly, and the former probably, a white spoi-t 

 from the Baroness Rothschild. It seems probable 

 that one of the parents of the Baroness Rothschild 

 was a siogle or semi-double white Rose, as the whole 

 of the white varieties that have either sported or 

 been raised from it are less double than their parent 

 — losing petals as well as colour in their reversion to 

 more primitive and inferior types. But, however 

 produced, sports are readily fixed and multiplied by 

 the usual processes of propagation. 



It would almost seem at times as if these in them- 

 selves became means of developing sports. A curious 

 case is recorded by Mr. Henderson, the distinguished ' 

 American nurseryman, which confirms to some 

 extent this theory. A hundred cuttings of the Tea 

 Rose, La Nankin, were put in, all from the same 

 plant. When the cuttings flowered, four very dis- 

 tinct varieties were developed. One had pure white 

 flowers, others pure pink, a third were pure nankeen, 

 and the fourth were like their parent, white above 

 and nankeen below. Of course colom- is more given 

 to sport than any other quality. The old York and 

 Lancaster Rose, for example, often comes with the 

 flakes or bands of white varying in width frotn a few 

 lines to the overgrowing of the greater portion of the 

 flower. Most of the parti- coloured Roses are also 

 less firmly fixed than the self s, as if the two or more 

 colours were felt to be a mistake, and they were 

 trying to get back to the state of single blessedness 

 that they had left. The older traditions about Roses 

 would point to red as their primitive colour, and it 

 is probably by a series of bud and seed variations 

 that they have grown into their present state of 

 perfection in regard to form, size, texture, colour, 

 and fragrance. Hence om' advice — expect sports, 



