50 NATIVE FLOWERS OF VICTORIA. 
a flower-head of quite a different colour to the ori- 
ginal or proper one. This is known to botanists as 
“ bud- variation, ” or to gardeners as “sporting” or a 
“sport.” It is often possible by saving and plant- 
ing the seeds of these flowers, or by taking the shoot 
on which they grow and grafting or layering it, or 
by growing it as a cutting, to obtain permanent 
plants of the new colour. This is one way by which 
many of our beautiful garden flowers have been pro- 
duced. So far no one has been able to give a suffi- 
cient reason for “sports,” and we are reaUy not much 
further advanced than the old Cornishman’s explana- 
tion, “Where ’tis, there ’tis.” Some people credit 
the bees with the work, “the bees coloured the 
flower, ’ ’ they say. The bee is certainly a clever little 
insect, but this work of bud-variation cannot be 
credited to it, clever as it is. Certainly the bee, in 
carrying the pollen from one flower to another flower 
of the same family, wiU cause the seed when grown, to 
give plants with flowers of another colour. This is 
called hybridising. But the bee can never change 
the colours of the flowers on the plants themselves. 
One of the most beautiful Composites is Helichry- 
sum datum. This plant has not yet been brought 
into general cultivation. It is also a native of New 
South Wales and Queensland, and in Victoria it is 
found only in East Gippsland. It is a tall shrubby 
branching plant, about eight or ten feet in height, 
with woolly-backed leaves, similar to those of the 
blanket tree, and in early summer it is covered with 
large flowers, pure silvery white. When moving in 
the wind, with the sunlight plajdng on the shrub, it 
