On Gardeners' Flowers 



charms of the Wild Rose? But some 

 of our double Roses have their stamens 

 and pistils left to them." They have, 

 and in trimming betwixt single and double 

 they have lost the excellences of both. 

 Double flowers are often good and highly 

 valuable, but in nearly every instance 

 that I can call to mind the half-way be- 

 twixt single and double is a thorough 

 failure. The multiplied petals have de- 

 stroyed the simplicity of the single, whilst 

 they cannot give the full form of the 

 double blossom, and the stamens are often 

 more or less disarranged and broken, 

 and in any case such petals must make 

 them worthless. From this general con- 

 demnation I should except the half-double 

 Columbine, where the many rows of 

 petals fit together into a very elegant 

 bonnet shape. The peculiar structure 

 in a flower like this prevents much of 

 the usual mischief.^ What, then, is the 

 general conclusion to which I would 

 lead ? I would say that the doubling 

 of a blossom, whatever advantages may 

 accrue from it, tends on the whole to 



^ An approach to half- double flowers may some- 

 times be found in Nature in such types as the Cactus, 

 where the petals are very numerous, and in several rows ; 

 but the arrangement is much less beautiful than the more 

 common kind. 



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