HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL. 181 
COLOR AND ODOR OF FLOWERS. 
The products of no department of nature have been more admired for 
the beauty of their colorings, and the variety of their tints, than those of 
vegetables. Flowers have ever been the example of nature's penciling, 
and from their beauty in this respect they have been the subjects of the 
poet's strains. 
" Who can paint 
Like nature ? Can imagination boast, 
Amid her gay creation, hues like hers ? 
Or can she mix them with that matchless skill, 
And lose them in each other, as appears 
In every bud that blows ?" 
Our Saviour, with unequalled beauty, in his allusion to the Lilies of the 
field, yields his assent to the same sentiment. 
The various colors are supposed to have their origin in a substance 
called Chromule, and that the great variety of hues presented in the 
vegetable kingdom are produced by the action of acids and alkalies on the 
chromule. 
Chromule in its natural state is green, and by maceration may be 
readily separated from the tissue, to which it gives coloring. The grains 
of chromule are of an irregular shape, rather approaching the sphere, but 
somewhat angular, and consist of a semi-fluid, gelatinous mass, not enclosed 
in a sac. It is affirmed by some to contain iron and manganese, to which 
the varieties of color are owing, produced by the accession of these dif- 
ferent substances, as it is well known that almost every hue may be pro- 
duced by these two metals. But the quantity of chromule which exists in 
plants is exceedingly small ; Berzelius estimated the quantity in the leaves 
of a large tree not to exceed three and a half ounces. 
To enable plants to deposite chromule, light, in most cases, is absolutely 
necessary. This is abundantly shown by the fact, that plants growing in 
the dark become blanched; not that the chromule already deposited 
becomes less, but that it is surrounded by the deposition of substances 
containing no chromule, and of course becomes less observable. There 
are examples, however, of plants growing in deep mines, having never 
enjoyed the light of day, which, nevertheless, are green. 
Crreen is considered the natural color of vegetation ; and when it is not 
of this hue, in the language of Botany, it is said to be colored. 
The change of color produced on chromule has been referred to different 
