108 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



much increase, and leave the bulbs in till they flower. The 

 usual game of " droppers " goes merrily on, till the young bulbs 

 feel, that if they drop any deeper, there will be suffocation, 

 through their leaves never reaching the surface alive — and they 

 will take care not to incur this. Seed may be saved from either 

 rectified or self-coloured parents without affecting the habit of 

 change, which is innate, and so is transmissible through either 

 form. 



It is worthy of note that in the Tulip there is no strain 

 whatever upon the plant in allowing it to bear seed. The new 

 bulb has nothing whatever to do with the seed-pod. It is all 

 but complete when the plant is in flower, and is ripe before the 

 seed-pod begins to swell. 



It is merely an onlooker at any process beyond the bloom. 

 The fibres and leaves have fed it, and the old bulb has worn 

 out its life for its child. For all the new bulb cares, the leaves 

 and fibres and stem may perish when it is fully formed ; and 

 they will, unless there is the further stimulus of a seed-pod to 

 live for and lengthen the evening of their days. 



The relationship between the white and yellow grounds is so 

 close, and seedlings are so very sportive, that in their variations 

 some will accomplish the feat of belonging to two classes at 

 once. There are such combinations as the base colour of the 

 Bizarre, and the body colour of the Bybloemen ; or the pink of 

 the " Bose " Breeder with the yellow base of that of the Bizarre. 

 "When such mixtures break, there will be three colours on the 

 rectified petals, constituting the inadmissible flower termed the 

 " tricolor." The feather or flame follows the class to which the 

 body colour of the Breeder had belonged, that >being its own 

 exclusive gathering ground. But when the base colour, which 

 here belongs to a different class, strikes up into the petals, 

 driving away the old Breeder colour from before it, to give a 

 new ground colour like its own, which is its prescriptive right, 

 it encounters the interest and influence of the former occupier. 

 Neither will quite give way, and the result is a compromise. 

 The ground colour of such a flower, rectified, will be either a 

 streaky mixture of white and yellow or some weak and washy 

 compound of both. 



I know I seem to have " given a catch " here, but I write 

 advisedly, and will watch to see the critic " miss it " ! 



