272 THE FLORIST AND 



with man^ other plants, for example, the Alonsoa, Celsia linearis, which is 1 

 in Didynaitlia, 14th class, was once Hemimeris cocciriea, and placed in De- 

 candria, 2nd class.- The Catalpa grows spontaneously around here, it is not"' 

 removed so far from its natural locality ; the Brugmansia Knightii could 

 not have two' corollas one one flower, although that corolla might be double/ 

 the Leontodon taraxacum has a very double flower, and yet its whole number 

 of polypetals are included in one corolla; and the monopetal of the Datura' 

 or Brugmansia makes one corolla ; petals can never become stamens, but if 

 the Brugmansia Knightii has sometimes five stamens and sometimes ten, 

 then it does not belong either to Pentandria or Decandria, 5th. or 10th. 

 class, and therefore should be placed in a class by itself. 



Now you see that I am one who has failed to do as Mr. Meehan has done, 

 and if ten have been successful let them come out and place Mr. Meehan in the 

 right; this is my first and last article on the strawberry controversy. 



Respectfully, Walter Elder. 



Mr. Elder mistaken iri a great many points ; — in the first place, in his as- 

 sertion of thf unchnngeableriess of the staminate or pistillate characters of 

 strawberry flowers. Facts are against that theory ;— Mr. Meehan has 

 shown plants which had both kinds of flowers. The Cincinnatians and their sup- 

 porters are like the French Abbe who had announced a new theory ; being 

 told by a friend that the facts were opposition "to it— -he replied "tant pis 

 pour les faits" "so much the worse for the facts." Mr. Meehan has an- 

 nounced nothing new, he has* merely proven what has been asserted before, 

 and what has been all along believed by some of our very best cultivators. 

 Again, if there is any truth in science, the pistils, the stamens, the petals 

 and sepals, the bracts and leaves are all different developments of the same 

 principle ; by hybridization we often change the development of different 

 parts, the stamens become pistils, or the contrary ; the stamens are changed 

 into petals making double flowers. Oak leaves and the leaves of Evony 

 mus japonica are evidences of changes in shape and colour produced by 

 certain influences, and if in shape and colour, why not in other characters ? 

 Leontodon taraxacum is a compound plant, and is really a head of many 

 flowers ; what Mr. Elder takes for petals are merely rays of the involucre. 

 I have before me a rose which is growing out of the seed vessel of another, 

 it is not an uncommon thing to see, but it is a good illustration ; it is merely 

 a change of development ; in place of perfecting its seeds it has continued 

 its growth and produced another flower, sometimes a shoot is produced in 

 the same way, as is often the case in pears and apples. A slight acquaint- 

 ance with Morphology, or the laws of the development of the parts of plants 

 and flowers would convince the upholders of the Cincinnati theory of its en* 

 tire fallaciousness. 



