NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



it was, — some of the plants bearing great 

 quantities of seeds but no flowers, some bear- 

 ing beautiful flowers in great" profusion but 

 not a single seed, some bearing seeds and 

 flowers arranged in the most fantastic shapes 

 with flowers surrounding the seed-capsules and 

 vice versa, and some curious ones bearing 

 neither seeds nor flowers, — yet the experi- 

 ment proved still more interesting to the 

 layman from the point of view of the adorn- 

 ment of the world. For among all the won- 

 derful improvements in floral life which Mr. 

 Burbank has effected, it is doubtful if any 

 one of them has shown what might be termed 

 such spectacular beauty. His creations are 

 each so individually characteristic and beauti- 

 ful that they are not easily to be compared, 

 but the poppy results certainly may be desig- 

 nated as among the most magnificent. 



But look a little later upon this bed of 

 poppies, and even the strangeness of the new 

 life in seed -capsule and leaf is overshadowed 

 in interest by the splendid blossoms them- 

 selves. They are now a mass of crimson and 

 black and white, with many intermediate 

 blendings. So huge the blossoms, so wide 



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