By Joseph Sabine, Esq. 



425 



but they are not sufficient to justify the opinion that the 

 varieties are not steady to their characters. Those which 

 usually have quite double flowers sometimes produce semi- 

 double ones, and the blossoms of semi- double flowering 

 plants occasionally lose all appearance of a disc. Sometimes 

 also, considerable differences occur in the opening of the 

 quilled parts of the florets, so as to give the appearance of 

 expansion to the quilled varieties, and of being quilled to 

 those which have been described as expanded. This last 

 circumstance frequently occurs with the Purple Chrysan- 

 themum, which in its usual state has its flowers well expan- 

 ded, but at times the florets of an entire plant will come 

 quilled, and then have been mistaken for those of a new variety. 



I am of opinion that the flowers of the Chrysanthemums 

 have a very different appearance in the gardens of the Chi- 

 nese from that which they assume under the treatment of the 

 English gardener. I am led to this, from an examination of 

 the drawings in the Library of the Horticultural Society, which 

 have been executed from living plants at Canton, by one of the 

 best native artists. There are upwards of fifty different varie- 

 ties represented in these drawings, very few indeed of which 

 can be considered as resemblances of the plants which have 

 blossomed in this country, and yet it is scarcely possi- 

 ble to suppose that some of our imported varieties are not 

 referable to them. Of the correctness of the representations 

 in these drawings I have little doubt, because the resem- 

 blances of other plants figured by the same artist, which 

 have blossomed here, are perfect. The Society is also posses- 

 sed of a series of very accurate drawings of all the varieties, 

 which have been described by me in the Transactions, taken 



