366 



FLOWERS. 



Chap. X_ 



C& ? ' ' 



placed it in a distinct genus from Begonia, but would probably have con- 

 sidered it as the type of a new natural order." This modification cannot 

 in one sense be considered as a monstrosity, for analogous structures 

 naturally occur in other orders, as with Saxifragas and Aristolochiaceas. 

 The interest of the case is largely added to by Mr. C. W. Crocker's obser- 

 vation that seedlings from the normal flowers produced plants winch bore, 

 in about the same proportion as the parent-plant, hermaphrodite flowers 

 having inferior perianths. The hermaphrodite flowers fertilised with their 

 own pollen were sterile. 



If florists had attended to, selected, and propagated by seed other modi- 

 fications of structure besides those which are beautiful, a host of curious 

 varieties would certainly have been raised ; and they would probably have 

 transmitted their characters so truly that the cultivator would have felt 

 aggrieved, as in the case of culinary vegetables, if his whole bed had not 

 presented' a uniform appearance. Florists have attended in some instances 

 to the leaves of their plant, and have thus produced the most elegant and 

 symmetrical patterns of white, red, and green, which, as in the case of the 

 pelargonium, are sometimes strictly inherited. 176 Any one who will habi- 

 tually examine highly-cultivated flowers in gardens and greenhouses will 

 observe numerous deviations in structure; but most of these must be 

 ranked as mere monstrosities, and are only so far interesting as showing 

 how plastic the organisation becomes under high cultivation. From this 

 point of view such works as Professor Moquin-Tandon's ' Teratologie' are 

 highly instructive. 



Roses.— These flowers offer an instance of a number of forms generally 

 ranked as species, namely, R. centifolia, gattica, alba, damascena, spinosis- 

 sima, bradeata, lndica y semperflorens, moschata, &c, which have largely 

 varied and been intercrossed. The genus Eosa is a notoriously difficult 

 one, and, though some of the above forms are admitted by all botanists to 

 be distinct species, others are doubtful ; thus, with respect to the British 

 forms, Babington makes seventeen, and Bentham only five species. The 

 hybrids from some of the most distinct forms— for instance, from E. 

 Indica, fertilised by the pollen of R. centifolia—ipYoduce an abundance of 

 seed; I state this on the authority of Mr. Eivers, 177 from whose work I 

 have drawn most of the following statements. As almost all the aboriginal 

 forms brought from different countries have been crossed and recrossed, it 

 is no wonder that Targioni-Tozzetti, in speaking of the common roses of the 

 Italian gardens, remarks that " the native country and precise form of the 

 wild type of most of them are involved in much uncertainty." 178 Never- 

 theless Mr. Eivers in referring to R. Indica (p. 68) says that the descend- 

 ants of each group may generally be recognised by a close observer. The 

 same author often speaks of roses as having been a little hybridised; but 



176 Alph. de Candolle, 'Geograph. 

 Bot.,' p. 1083; * Gard. Chronicle,' 1861, 

 p. 433. The inheritance of the white 

 and golden zones in Pelargonium largely 

 depends on the nature of the soil. See 

 D. Beaton, in ' Journal of Horticulture,' 



Guide,' T. 



1861, p. 61. 



177 « Bose Amateur's 

 Eivers, 1837, p. 21. 



178 ' Journal Hort. Soc.,' vol. ix. 185.% 

 p. 182. 



46. 



