NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



ably not one out of a thousand seeds produced 

 a flower with any fragrance. It is far easier 

 for a flower to rebel and throw off a new per- 

 fume than it is for it to discard some other 

 characteristic which it has been led to adopt." 



Now that the solution of the problem has 

 been reached, it is only the question of the 

 necessary time for the conversion of the entire 

 dahlia family to fragrance. 



To change an ill odor into a dehghtful one 

 is one of the most remarkable of Mr. Bur- 

 bank's achievements in breeding for perfume, 

 but to give a flower fragrance where none 

 before existed, this is a still more difficult task. 



For years he has been at work perfecting a 



-heretofore scentless verbena, increasing it in 



size and beauty of blossoms and giving it a 



more commanding place among the flowers of 



the world. In the evening of a summer day, 



I while he was walking in the plots set apart for 



Hhe testing of the verbenas, a faint odor came 



up to him on the soft night air. It was so 



curious a thing, coming from a bed of flowers 



before bearing no fragrance, that he instantly 



began a search in the bed for the plant whose 



blossom had shown this strange scent. 



180 



