140 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in the eyes of true florists only enhance, by the contrast of their 

 grotesque and extravagant characters, the exquisite beaucy and 

 refinement of the incurved flowers. 



We begin, then, with types of all the forms ready made, and 

 not a few of the types of good quality, though for the most part 

 rough. It will be seen in the sequel that the florists have not 

 created any new form, but have improved all, and to those more 

 especially favoured for exhibition purposes have imparted qualities 

 that place our best Chrysanthemums as works of art in advance 

 of all known florist's flowers. In power of expression, distinct- 

 ness of character, in forms of beauty no less cheering to the heart 

 than delightful to the eye, a beauty that is unique and the em- 

 bodiment of the highest harmonies of plastic form, the Chrysan- 

 themum surpasses all other flowers, not even the Kose, the Tulip, 

 or the Dahlia being excepted. 



If we ask for explanation of this, undoubtedly the initial form 

 is the first to be considered. It is that of any ordinary Aster, a 

 central circular table filled with tubular hermaphrodite florets for 

 the disc of the single flower ; and a circle of ligulate female 

 florets for a boundary, a defence, a range of external attractions 

 to lure to the fertile florets in the centre the insects required to 

 effect fertilisation. The circle is the most perfect of all figures, 

 and the source of all beauty of form and proportion ; and related 

 circles are inexhaustible in variations, as they are also in creative 

 power in the production of curvilinear forms without end. We 

 lose a grand primary feature when we have sterilised a flower by 

 converting the tubular into ligulate florets ; and, from the aesthetic 

 point of view, the double Starwort is less beautiful than the single. 

 But the loss of the disc which gives such a fine character to the 

 Anemone Chrysanthemums, and in a less striking degree to all the 

 single flowers, is compensated by the enlargement of the ligulate 

 florets, and by the repetition over the entire periphery of their 

 elegant ribbon or wire-drawn forms ; moreover, their curvatures 

 bring into the field circles, segments of circles, and modifications 

 of circles without end, giving the imagination the task of leading 

 where the eye cannot follow, and in the incurved flower display- 

 ing the regularity of an example of engine- turning, expressed in 

 the delicate material and translucent colouring of the living 

 flower. Nature has worked with this primary pattern in Asters, 

 Helianths, Pyrethrums, and Chrysanthemums as though a mere 



