• 154 On the Culture of Lobelia Fulgens. 



makes great efforts for re-production, previous to its death. 

 We have tried to vary this beautiful plant, by raising it from 

 seed, in order either to acquire double flowers, or to change 

 its colour; but our trials have not been attended with 

 success. We have, however, produced a dwarf variety, the 

 flower of which is more shining; the flowers are likewise nearer 

 each other, and the foliage shorter and thicker in proportion. 

 The Lobelia Cardinalis has already produced a permanent 

 dwarf variety, but which is more liable to perish. There is 

 also another variety of the Fulgens, of a different colour, 

 namely a pale rose-coloured one, similar to that of the 

 Cardinalis. This want of success has nothing surprising in 

 it, the first propagation by seed being still too near nature 

 to produce a variation. This mode of re-production must 

 not therefore be given up, but repeated ; the seed should 

 always be taken from the last plants that have been sepa- 

 rated from the original exotic. In thus departing from 

 nature, the plant rather yields to art, and falls into mon- 

 strosity, which in artificial gardening, is often the perfection 

 sought for. A plant, transported from its native soil 

 into a climate, where it does not grow spontaneously, when 

 repeatedly propagated by seed, often degenerates, changes 

 its colour, and becomes double. This is the principle 

 of varying plants. It is impossible that a plant, which 

 is so easily multiplied by slips, should not vary, when pro- 

 pagated by seed. A plant once degenerated, that is to say, 

 once sown in a soil which is not natural to it, does not come 

 back by seed to the form it originally had in its native country. 

 Thence the continual variations of species, even in those 

 climates where they grow in the open air. The plants 



