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THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
and carnation may be cited as examples. Nature even points 
the way in such flowers as the water-Hly and lotus, and in less 
measure in mandrake, magnolia, barberry, and hepatica. All 
these, it will be noticed are simply saucer-like flowers, possess- 
ing no special beauty of form. But when it comes to others, 
whose first claim to attraction is in the marvellous fashioning 
of the flower cup, man's barbaric taste in matters of beauty is 
revealed in all its ugliness. Double morning glories, petunias, 
bell worts and others are in the botanical sense mon- 
strosities and they are no less monstrosities in any 
esthetic sense. Half the charm of the daffodil and nar- 
cissus lies in the clear cup outlined in the center of the flower. 
To double such a flower, is to render it worthless, if measured 
by any standard of beauty, except that of a savage. To really 
improve a flower, we ought to strengthen and deepen those 
qualities that give it beauty. To enlarge the parts, to in- 
crease the clearness of their coloring, to add to the delicacy 
of their perfume and the texture of their petals may well be 
among our aims, but if a mere display of colored petal is 
sought, why bother with flowers at all when something just 
as good can be made in half the time by a three-dollar-a-week 
girl with a few pieces of wire and some colored cloth or paper ? 
* * * 
In the Plant World for October is an article by Prof. J. 
C. Arthur on the delayed germination in the cocklebur 
(Xanthium) in which the author seems to be still in the dark 
as to the reason why the upper of the two seeds in the bur 
does not germinate readily under normal conditions. If the 
editors of the Plant World will consult recent numbers of the 
Botanical Gazette, or even read carefully The American 
Botanist, they will find that Mr. William Crocker has dis- 
covered that the delay is due to the completeness with which 
the seed-coat of the upper seed excludes oxygen. 
