January 8, 18*8. 



GARDENERS' MAGAZINE, 



19 



Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Institution. — The annual friendly 



supper of the members of this society and their friends will take place at Simp- 

 sons, 101, Strand, on Thursday, January 20th, after the annual meeting, when 

 Mr. Arthur W. Sutton, V.M.H., will preside. The Duke of Portland has pro- 

 mised to preside at the sixtieth annual dinner to be held in the course of the 

 coming summer. It is hoped that the dinner will lie held in June, but the date 

 is not yet fixed. 



An Old Oak. — An interesting discovery has been made at Stockport. During 

 the excavations in the construction of sewage works for the town some workmen 

 came across a massive oak tree, with two immense branches. Professor Boyd 

 Daw T kins is of opinion that the tree is one of the giants of prehistoric times, and 

 he says that the tree is certainly 10,000 years old. The Corporation of Stockport 

 are at a loss to know what to do with the gigantic tree, which is supposed to 

 weigh about forty tons, and as it is necessary that it should be removed, a proposal 

 has been made to blow it up with dynamite. This has aroused the indignation of 

 a large section of the inhabitants of the town, and the following petition has been 

 presented to the Corporation : u That there is a valuable tree of old oak at present 

 lying upon and exposed in the gravel on and within their property. That the 

 quality in colour, grain, and solidity is better than any that can be bought in the 

 open market. That for artistic work alone it is greatly to be treasured, for nothing 

 in this country is at present grown which can come up to its dimensions. That it 

 contains within itself sufficient material to make the furniture for any public build- 

 ing or town hail which may be erected for the public benefit within our borough. 

 That it only requires lifting from its bed, which in the opinion of competent 

 geologists may be roughly estimated as 15,000 years of occupation. That private 

 effort has failed to achieve its removal. That its destruction would be a public 

 loss and an artistic calamity. That your representatives in council be and are 

 hereby requested to conserve for the borough this grant of Nature to her sons and 

 daughters, whose signatures are hereby affixed." The Corporation have reserved 

 their decision, and in the meantime efforts are being made to bring pressure to 

 bear upon the Council to preserve the tree for the benefit of the town and the 

 country. ^ ir f : 



A New Alder under the name of Alnus tinctoria was sent several years ago 

 to the Arnold Arboretum by Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons, who probably raised it 

 rom seeds collected in Japan. In referring to the tree, Professor Sargent 

 states in Garden and Forest that he has seen the same tree in Yezo, and the 

 plants raised from seeds which he brought from that island are identical with 

 Veitch's Alnus tinctoria, a name which, although it has been more or less used in 

 gardens, appears to be still unpublished. On the island of Yezo this alder is a 

 shapely tree from fifty to sixty feet in height, with a trunk often two feet in 

 diameter, growing there on low slopes in rich moist ground, usually at some 

 distance from the banks of streams, which are generally occupied in southern Yezo 

 by Alnus japonica. It has been considered by the Japanese botanists Spach's 

 variety hirsuta of Alnus incana, of Manchuria and Siberia, and it is possible that 

 this view is correct, although, for lack of proper material, representing the different 

 species and varieties of Asiatic alders in American herbaria, it is impossible to form 

 a correct idea on this subject. The leaves of this alder, which, until something 

 more is known of the Manchurian species, had, in Professor Sargent's opinion, 

 best be called Alnus tinctoria, are oblong, obtusely wedge-shaped at the base, 

 coarsely doubly serrate, or often incisely lobed above the middle, and clothed 

 below with soft, close, rufous pubescence, which also covers the upper side of the 

 slender midribs and primary veins ; they are thin and membranaceous, from four 

 to six inches long and from three and a half to five inches broad, dark green 

 above, pale below, and are borne on stout petioles an inch and a half in length. 

 The buds of the staminate catkins are an inch and a half long and a third of an 

 inch broad, and are borne on stout peduncles from one third to one half of an inch 

 in length. The fruit is half an inch long and about a third of an inch thick, so 

 that the leaves, the buds of the staminate catkins, and the fruits, are much larger 

 than those of any of the European or North American forms of Alnus incana. The 

 stout, somewhat flattened branchlets marked by only occasional pale lenticels and 

 covered during the winter by a glaucous bloom, and the much larger bright 

 purple-red winter buds, appear very distinct from those ot Alnus incana. Several 

 of the plants raised from seeds which Professor Sargent brought from Japan in 

 1892 are now twelve feet high, with perfectly straight stems from five to six inches 

 in diameter at the base, and furnished with well-balanced, vigorous branches. 

 Shapely and handsome now, they look as if they would grow to a large size and 

 prove valuable ornamental trees. 



Illuminated Bouquets. — A paragraph is going the " round " of the 



press to the effect that illuminated bouquets are the latest fad among fashionable 

 people. Natural flowers are said to be almost dispensed with at many of the 

 big dinners, electrically lighted roses, narcissi, carnations, and other flowers 

 being used instead. The flowers used for illumination are said to be clever re- 

 productions of the true blossoms, blown in thinnest coloured crystal, or made in 

 shell porcelain, and mounted en stems of rubber, with green silk foliage. Down 

 the yellow stem of every flower runs a wire that communicates with a minute bulb 

 in the flowers' hearts, whence flashes forth the electric light. The penny-a-liner 

 proceeds, " Many of these imitation flowers are so beautifully made and perfurred 

 that, when not alight, they are easily mistaken for real flowers," but he fails to 

 add who the persons are that are so ignorant of natural flowers as to mistake glass 

 or porcelain manufactures for them. 



Potato, Sutton's Satisfaction.— In the report of the Birmingham Potato 

 Show our reporter stated that in the class for the most handsome dish of potatos 

 the winning variety was Up-to-date, but we learn from Messrs. Sutton and Sons 

 that the variety obtaining this distinction was Sutton's Satisfaction. 



Seed Exports.— Garden and farm seeds are shipped in large quantities to 

 the Continent and Australasia, the average annual outward consignments in 1894- 

 96 amounted to over 12,000 tons, of the value of ,£275,000. I 



The Blue Chrysanthemum. 



Could we but raise a blue chrysanthemum some of our chrysanthemum enthu- 

 siasts would give almost any sum to possess that treasure. But why has such 

 a product so far baffled all our efforts in this direction ? 



First, let us see how a natural cross is effected in the chrysanthemum. The 

 chrysanthemum belongs to the natural order Composite or the Daisy family, and 

 to the uninitiated appears at first sight to be a single simple flower, but on closer 

 examination, it is found to be a collection of flowers, crowded together into one 

 head. Two kinds of flowers are usually found to compose these heads in most 

 composites. An outer whorl, usually having a long strap-shaped corolla, and the 

 inner flowers, with regular tubular corolla. In these latter the five petals are 

 joined^ and so forms a beautiful little tube. On the inner side of these 

 petals is found another little tube formed of five anthers, cohering at their edges, 

 each being connected with the outer tube by an almost microscopic filament! 

 These anthers bears the pollen grains. Occupying the centre of the flower is the 

 little round ovary with a perpendicular outgrowth, the style, which when opened 

 out at the top in a forked manner forms a bifid stigma. Before a seed can be 

 formed some pollen grains must be transferred from the anthers to the stigma, 

 where, if the conditions are favourable they will germinate, sending out a pollen tube] 

 which penetrates the conducting tissue of the style and reaches down to the ovule,' 

 contained in the ovary. The contents of the pollen grain then pass through the 

 tube and fertilisation is effected, the result after further complicated and exceed- 

 ingly interesting changes, being a structure we term the seed. Some flowers are 

 dichogamous, that is, the pollen and stigma attain their functional activities at 

 different times ; this is so with the chrysanthemum, and [like the rest of its family 

 it is what is known as protandrous, which simply means that the pollen arrives at 

 maturity and is shed before the stigma of the same flower is capable of receiving 

 it. When the pollen grains of the chrysanthemum flowers arrive at maturity the 

 style is very short, concealed as it were, below the little tube of anthers. A very 

 remarkable and interesting process then takes place, the style and stigma actually 

 dispersing the pollen ; instead of using it itself the style commences to grow, and 

 rapidly pushes itself through the little tube of anthers, and taking a number of the 

 ripe pollen grains with it, and causing them to be scattered on the fully 

 matured stigmas of older surrounding flowers. 



The brilliant pigments of flowers usually reside in the specialised organs known 

 as petals, though they may sometimes be found in other parts of the flower. 

 These colours, which are of various hues and tints, are— purple and blue excepted 

 — found in the ordinary foliage leaves of some plants, and the colours of petals 

 are in many cases exactly the same as in those foliage leaves from which the green 

 has disappeared. The different hues of flowers are, as it were, laid up in the 

 tissues of the plant. But, as they develop, do the changes in the colour follow 

 any definite or progressive order ? Do they run from any one colour to another ? 

 We often see progression in the direction of a colour change in the life-history of 

 some individual flowers. One of our wallflowers {Cheiranthus c/uemalas) has a 

 yellow flower which changes into red and to violet. One of the forget-me-nots 

 \Myosotis versicolor) is pale yellow when it first opens, but changes to faint red, 

 and ends by being blue. The bracts of Hakea Victoria, a greenhouse evergreen 

 shrub, are yellowish-white in the centre the first ye&r, a rich golden-yellow the 

 second year, rich orange the third year, and the fourth yeai the colour is blood- 

 red. The Virginian stock of our gardens opens a pale yellowish-green, then 

 becomes deeply red, and finally purple and blue. In all these and many others 

 the direction of colour change is the same, from yellow through red and purple to 

 blue, and that is as far in the scale as they have reached, thus proving the fact so 

 clearly shown by Mr. Grant Allen and Sir J. Lubbock that blue flowers represent 

 the most highly-developed lines of descent, which have, or whose ancestors have, 

 passed successfully through all the intermediate stages. Then how has this blue 

 colour become fixed in some flowers? The function of the flower is the pro- 

 duction of the seed, and to attain that end we see that fertilisation must be 

 effected. Various and numerous are the ways plants adopt to ensure fertilisa- 

 tion ; some have adapted themselves to pollination by insects, and as a result 

 have acquired special peculiarities of structure and colour of their petals, as 

 may be readily seen ; those flowers which have undergone the most modification 

 have their colours most altered, as we usually find that the simplest flowers 

 those with regular symmetrical cups like buttercups — are yellow, and such as 

 these can be visited by any simple insect. Those flowers which are modified still 

 more, like the silenes and campions, which have closer cups and whose nectar 

 can only be reached by higher insects, are usually pink or red ; and those which 

 are the most highly modified, like the peas, salvias, violets, monkshood, and 

 larkspur, have assumed special shapes to accommodate bees and other honey- 

 seekers, and are invariably purple or blue. 



Anyone visiting a garden where a number of flowers are to be seen during the 

 summer months will find that the highest insects repeatedly visit the purple and 

 blue in preference to the more red or yellow flowers, and, as the inseefs prefer 

 these colours, the flowers of succeeding generations become as a result more 

 purple and blue, the plants catering as it were for the insects. 



The structure of the chrysanthemum flower with its mechanical method of 

 pollination, acts as a preventive against this kind of selection, but the equivalent 

 cross is procured, a cross to all intents and purposes adapted to the structure, 

 conditions, and requirements of the individual flowers. But, as we have seen, it 

 is not a selective cross, as the insects select, and hence, in the chrysanthemum, w T e 

 get little or no specialisation of petal, colour, and odour. In the natural order to 

 which the chrysanthemum belongs, very few species have as yet risen to the stage 

 of producing blue petals. Out of one hundred and fifcy-two species enumerated in 

 Britain ninety -three are yellow, and three only are blue, and these are specialised 

 flowers. The chrysanthemum of Nature is, as its name implies, a yellow flower, 

 and none have ever evolved to the stage of blue, and that, perhaps, is why we do 

 not get a blue chrysanthemum in cultivation. It is easy to make chrysanthemums, 

 or any other flowers, vary within their own natural limits and revert to any colour 

 through which they have passed, but where it is difficult is to make them take a 

 step which they have not taken naturally, and so we find that the most developed 

 flowers are the most varying in colour, and we get yellow and red chrysanthemums 

 with their varieties, but no true purple or blue ones. It may be possible to obtain 

 a blue one by selecting and preserving the most purple from the red forms until a 

 type is fixed, and then in the same way selecting the most blue from the purplish 

 kinds ; but this is a very slow and tedious process for man, whose life and patience 

 is so short, and who has to substitute a camel hair brush for an insect's proboscis. 

 He is also further handicapped as Nature is largely against him, and it is little 

 wonder he becomes impatient and disgusted with himself, the chrysanthemums, 

 and his results, and so finally gives up in despair. The man of science learns that 

 from the comparative rarity of blue flowers in Nature, those shades which tend 

 toward blue are less frequent than yellow and red shades, and so we find there are 

 difficulties to be surmounted ere we reach the blue chrysanthemum. 



East Park, Hull. - " • Henry Knight.* 



