On Gardeners' Flowers 



into fruit. Now each of these parts, 

 stamen, pistil, or petal, essentially is 

 nothing but an altered form of leaf, a 

 leaf as it were half nourished. And 

 under favourable circumstances, with an 

 increased supply of food, their forms can 

 readily be changed. The stamens and 

 pistils become petals, the petals them- 

 selves increase in size and number, and 

 we have what is called a double flower. 

 And the cultivator usually considers a 

 flower most perfect when he has suc- 

 ceeded in making it double, of extra- 

 ordinary size, and of what he regards as 

 the most perfect shape and colour. At 

 least, he then has done his utmost, and 

 the worth of the product is determined 

 too much by the labour and skill which 

 it has cost. But gains of this sort cannot 

 possibly be unattended with loss. Let 

 us take, for instance, the double garden 

 Roses, and although they are mostly de- 

 rived from handsomer foreign species, it 

 will be enough for our purpose to com- 

 pare them with the common Dog Rose 

 of the hedge. Here, then, in the garden 

 flower the shape is truly magnificent. 

 There are the countless large, soft, fra- 

 grant petals, nestling round so closely into 

 the fulness of that deep warm bosom, 

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