139 
HARDY DOUBLE FLOWERS. 
Double flowers are necessarily favourites with almost every one, being, with 
few and rare exceptions, much more beautiful than the single forms of the genus, 
and also, in the majority of cases, evincing the exercise of that skill, which, when 
attended with favourable results, is always so pleasing. 
As exhibiting a curious fact in structural transformation, they are likewise very 
interesting ; for it is now pretty well known that all the double flowers produced 
by art (and probably those found so in a state of nature have the same origin) 
have undergone this singular change, whether by high culture or otherwise, through 
the conversion of the stamens of the flower into petals. This is clearly proved by 
the absence of stamens in double blossoms, and by the frequent existence in them 
of petals in only a hal-ftransformed condition, having the half-stamen on one side, 
and the half-petal on the other. 
That the occurrence of such a phenomenon at all favours the botanical theory 
which reduces all the floral parts of plants to leaves in a metamorphosed state, is 
exceedingly questionable ; since, to confirm a belief of that character, the circum- 
stance should be so common, where the conditions of growth are merely natural, 
as to render departure from it the extraordinary thing : whereas it need not be 
asserted that the direct opposite of this is the case. 
Regarding the cause of double flowers, and the means of obtaining them, no 
certain knowledge is current. The general opinion, founded, most certainly, on 
very rational premises, is that propitious culture in a rich and highly congenial soil, 
is the instrument in effecting the change. This hypothesis is based on the fact, 
that many of the plants, which, with Nature's assistance alone, have never borne 
other than single flowers, have, when subjected to the more refined processes of 
cultivation, been made to produce those of a double kind. Another piece of pre- 
sumptive evidence on the same side, is, that some double-blossomed plants, if 
treated in the artificial manner which it is thought first altered their character, 
retain their double properties ; but, when placed in other and less suitable circum- 
stances, pass back again into the single state. 
An instance, which appears to prove the direct reverse of all this, will probably 
be familiar to those who are accustomed to look on things with an observant and 
scrutinizing eye. It is that of the common meadow Crowfoot or Buttercup, {Ra- 
nunculus bulbosus,) which, when growing by road-sides or in other similar places, 
where it can be supplied with little nourishment, often becomes, during the summer, 
under the influence of partial drought and exhaustion, changed into a double or 
semi-double form. Possibly, other like cases, though not of such frequent occur- 
rence, may be easily met with ; showing that at least it is not superior culture of 
itself that effects this transformation of flowers in all plants that exhibit it. 
The rule, then, as far as physiological data and ordinary experience can be 
