OF' THE IMPROVEMENT OF EACES. 317 



Camellias, Anemones, Koses, 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. 1 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 unsymmetrieal 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 crowd 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 (Gard. Mag., xiv. 121).' Having a 

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



