SEX AND FEKTILIZATIOIT. Ill 



elementary or advanced botanical treatise, be able to 

 distinguish the sexual and other organs and parts of 

 flowers, and when a person has acquired this knowledge 

 through actual observation and study, that which may 

 have been previously obscure will, in a great measure, 

 become plain and easily understood. Partly or wholly 

 smothered organs will be relieved by removing, entire 

 or in part, others that have overgrown and shaded them, 

 as is frequently practised in removing the abnormal and 

 highly-deTeloped petals of double flowers, as inthedouble 

 Dahlias, Chrysanthemums, Asters, and other plants of 

 the Composite Family. 



In the doubling of such flowers as Fuchsias, Carna- 

 tions, Camellias, Eoses, and all members of the great 

 Eose Family ; Apple, Peach, Plum, Cherry, Almond 

 and Qiiince, as well as those of the Mallow Family, 

 Abutilon, Hollyhock, etc., the additional number of 

 petals are mainly transformed stamens, and the metamor- 

 phosis of these organs can be readily traced in their 

 gradual adrance from the single to the double form. 

 There are, however, exceptions to this rule, and the 

 multiplication of petals is a distinct process from that in 

 which they proceed from transformed stamens and pistils. 

 Sometimes we find a duplication of the petals in the 

 Hollyhock, Eose of Sharon and Chinese Hibiscus, while 

 the sexual organs retain their normal number and form. 

 In the only double Abutilon at present known (Abutilon 

 Thompsonii pleno), the stamens are all transformed into 

 irregularly shaped petals, with no duplication of the 

 divisions of the original corolla ; but a plant of Abutilon, 

 "■ Mary Miller, " in my greenhouse, recently produced a 

 flower with a perfectly duplicated corolla, or a semi-double 

 flower, showing that what we call "doubling" may pro- 

 ceed in this genus from both multiplication of the corolla 

 and the transformation of the stamens. 



In some plants, like the Eose, Fuchsias and Abutilon, 



