jChap. X. FLO WEES. 365 



Flowers possess little interest under our present point of view, be- 

 cause they have been almost exclusively attended to and selected for 

 their beautiful colours, size, perfect outline, and manner of growth. 

 In these particulars hardly one long-cultivated flower can be named 

 which has not varied greatly. What does a florist care for the shape and 

 structure of the organs of fructification, unless, indeed, they add to the 

 beauty of the flower ? When this is the case, flowers become modified in 

 important points ; stamens and pistils may be converted into petals, and 

 additional petals may be developed, as in all double flowers. The process 

 of gradual selection by which flowers have been rendered more and more 

 double, each step in the process of conversion being inherited, has been 

 recorded in several instances. In the so-called double flowers of the Com- 

 posite, the corollas of the central florets are greatly modified, and the 

 modifications are likewise inherited. In the columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) 

 some of the stamens are converted into petals having the shape of nec- 

 taries, one neatly fitting into the other ; but in one variety they are con- 

 verted into simple petals. 171 In the hose and hose primulas, the calyx 

 becomes brightly coloured and enlarged so as to resemble a corolla ; and 

 Mr. W. Wooler informs me that this peculiarity is transmitted; for he 

 crossed a common polyanthus with one having a coloured calyx, 172 and 

 some of the seedlings inherited the coloured calyx during at least six gene- 

 rations. In the " hen-and-chicken " daisy the main flower is surrounded 

 by a brood of small flowers developed from buds in the axils of the scales 

 of the involucre. A wonderful poppy has been described, in which the 

 stamens are converted into pistils ; and so strictly was this peculiarity in- 

 herited that, out of 154 seedlings, one alone reverted to the ordinary and 

 common type. 173 Of the cock's-comb ( Celosia cristata), which is an annual, 

 there are several races in which the flower-stem is wonderfully " fasciated " 

 or compressed ; and one has been exhibited 174 actually eighteen inches in 

 breadth. Peloric races of Gloxinia speciosa and Antirrhinum majus can be 

 propagated by seed, and they differ in a wonderful manner from the 

 typical form both in structure and appearance. 



A much more remarkable modification has been recorded by Sir William 

 and Dr. Hooker 175 in Begonia frigida. This plant properly produces male 

 and female flowers on the same fascicles ; and in the female flowers the 

 perianth is superior ; but a plant at Kew produced, besides the ordinary 

 flowers, others which graduated towards a perfect hermaphrodite structure ; 

 and in these flowers the perianth was inferior. To show the importance 

 of this modification under a classificatory point of view, I may quote what 

 Prof. Harvey says, namely, that had it " occurred in a state of nature, and 

 had a botanist collected a plant with such flowers, he would not only have 



171 Moquin - Tandon, ' Elements de vol. iv. p. 322. 



Teratologic,' 1841, p. 213. 175 'Botanical Magazine,' tab. 5160, 



172 See also « Cottage Gardener,' 1860, fig. 4 ; Dr. Hooker, in ' Gardener's 

 P- 133. Chron.,' 1860, p. 190; Prof. Harvey, in 



173 Quoted by Alpli. de Candolle, ' Gardener's Chron.,' 1860, p. 145 ; Mr. 

 ' Bibl. Univ.,' November 1862, p. 58. Crocker, in 'Gardener's Chron.,' 1861, 



174 



Knight, 'Transact, Hort. Soc.,' p. 1092. 



