CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 
Mr. Burbank was attracted by a wild ever- 
lasting flower which produces a rather inferior 
blossom in its Australian home, but which 
promised to develop into something far more 
attractive. Following the usual course of 
selection, he chose from among its plants those 
bearing the choicest blossoms, saved the seeds 
from these plants, and thus by constantly 
choosing those plants that approached the 
model in his mind, carried the flower forward 
through successive generations to a larger and 
far more beautiful state. The color of the 
blossoms, a delicate pink, was intensified and 
the blossom itself doubled in size. 
There are numerous “everlasting” flowers, 
more or less attractive to the eye, and to add 
a new flower to their list would not have been 
so extraordinary a thing, but the development 
of the Australian flower had a wholly distinc- 
tive purpose, the production of a flower for 
use in the manufacture of millinery goods and 
for use in allied decorative lines. Thus the 
new flower becomes commercially important, 
promising very largely to displace artificial 
flowers of wire, paint and cloth for the adorn- 
ment of women’s hats. The flower is not only 
161 
