NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
across. When carried in the other direction, a 
perfect calla was made not more than an inch 
and a half in diameter and perfect in every 
detail. 
Another calla was bred having handsome 
golden variegated leaves, in interesting contrast 
with the leaves which formerly had borne 
white spots. Before this great work, the 
common garden calla had had no odor, or, at 
best, only a faint and rather disagreeable one. 
As Mr. Burbank was examining a series of calla 
seedlings, he detected one which bore a fra- 
grance with the hint of violets and the sugges- 
tion, too, of the water-lily. This calla was 
isolated and bred for its perfume. Rigid 
selection and exclusion followed, and little by 
little the perfume was increased and _ intensi- 
fied until at last it was fixed, a rare and 
delightful attribute. The new flower also grew 
in marked profusion, and blossomed earlier 
than the calla from which it has been bred. 
Upon the general subject of new lilies, Mr. 
Burbank says: 
“Twenty-six years ago I began to cross our 
native Pacific Coast lilies, adding from time 
to time all the exotic species and varieties 
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