September 15, 1881. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER . 243 
shade throughout the summer. I have seen Mr. Bardney’s 
Camellias, and I acknowledge they have foliage much more 
beautiful than my plants have. Such plants must produce fine 
blooms. At the same time our plants always prove good flower- 
producers.—R. P. B. 
OBJECTS OF SEX AND OF ODOUR IN FLOWERS. 
[Read by Mr. T. Meehan before the American Association for the 
Advancement of Science.] 
(Continued from page 135.) 
But perhaps the most remarkable fact of all is that the statement 
of Dr. Gray, that anemophilous plants have flowers mostly destitute 
of odour, is probably incorrect. Certainly there is odour in a large 
number of anemophilous plants. In monoecious and dioecious classes 
colour or fragrance is usually present in the male flowers, and often 
both are there, but wanting in the female, unless in flowers with a 
conspicuous corolla, such as in Cucnrbitaceous plants. In these cases 
the degree of fragrance is equal. But odour to a greater or less 
degree exists in the Willows, Poplars, Maples, Rhus, Spinach, Indian 
Corn, Palms, Sweet Chestnut, and others, but always in the male and 
never in the female flowers. Instead of anemophiloxrs flowers being 
mostly destitute of odour, I have not been able this year to find any 
male flowers of this class that have not odour, with the single excep¬ 
tion of the common field Sorrel (Rumex Acetosella). The Sweet 
Chestnut (Castanea americana) is indeed remarkable for the pro¬ 
digious amount of odour and other material which, under prevailing 
notions of individual good, must be regarded as absolute waste, but 
which comes to be looked on as the height of wisdom under the laws 
involved in variation. As the branch grows the axillary buds which 
in many plants remain dormant till spring, and then perhaps make a 
new branch, push at once and make a spike of male flowers. A 
bnnch of these will fill a room with fragrance. There are about fifty 
clusters of these flowers in a spike, five flowers in a cluster, five spikes 
to a branch ; and hence twenty-five hundred male flowers, and these 
all fall before the female flower with its attendant male spike is 
formed, and which appear at the termination of the growth instead 
of at the axils. There is no conceivable use for this immense crop 
of precocious male flowers with its attendant fragrance under any 
law of reproduction ; but if we take into consideration the immense 
number of minute creatures on the earth, in the atmosphere, in water, 
everywhere—and the evident design of Nature that they should be 
fed, we may understand under the laws of variation how even a 
Chestnut may be made to scatter this food in profusion through the 
atmosphere, even though not the slightest benefit to itself or to its 
race should follow the act. Even the views of Professor Huxley 
that the coal measures of England are the product of pollen which 
fell during thirty thousand years in the carboniferous era, are explain¬ 
able under the operation of this law of variation for the purpose of 
ultimate universal good, but under no theory of individual benefit 
from natural selection that I can see. 
In pursuing our studies of the odours of flowers, we shall find 
many difficulties in believing that they were developed for the chief 
reason of attracting insects for the purpose of cross-fertilisation. 
Not the least of these difficulties is the fact of many genera of showy- 
coloured flowers existing, which may have one or two species highly 
odoriferous and the rest destitute of scent. The Yiolets of Europe 
are of this class. Yiola odorata is very sweet, the Pansy less so ; 
the rest are comparatively scentless. American Violets show the 
same characteristics. I am familiar with many species, but I only 
know of Yiola primulsefolia and Yiola blanda, two nearly allied 
species, that would be called sweet. Has fragrance given these sweet 
species any advantage in the struggle for life ? If so, it is, at least, 
not apparent. On the other hand, observation will show that the 
scentless flowers of this genera are just as freely visited as those 
which have odour. Of the many species of Reseda I only know of 
one that is fragrant, the common Mignonette. In my garden Reseda 
undata, wholly scentless, is as freely visited by bees as its sweet sister 
species. Again, it is a fact that among the sweet Mignonettes some 
are less fertile than others, and that the least productive have the 
most odour. Another remarkable case in which colour and fragrance 
in inverse proportion to productiveness is afforded by the genus 
Rubus—the Blackberry and Raspberry class. Rubus odoratus is 
beautiful and fragrant. How rarely if fruits is notorious. Rubus 
cuneatus is not high-coloured, but it is fragrant; not half the flowers 
produce anything usually, and many of those that do give but a very 
few carpels. Rubus canadensis has very showy white flowers but no 
odour, and its “ berries ” are generally more or less defective. Rubus 
villosus is less attractive than the last, and is more perfectly produc¬ 
tive. But the most fertile of all the species is Rubus occidentalis. 
I do not know that I ever saw a flower that did not make a perfect 
fruit, and yet it has no odour, scarcely any petals, and these of such 
a green shade of white as to be actually inconspicuous. On the 
ground of variety in which fragrance is to play its part, and which 
must of necessity permeate all things, we can understand its uses ; 
but we are lost when we attempt to explain such facts as these by 
any hypothesis that has for its foundation mere individual good. 
May we not, then, logically say that sex in Nature is not primarily 
for reproduction, but to insure variation ; that questions which pro¬ 
perly come under this law of variation have but a remote relationship 
to questions of natural selection, but are referable to some external 
power governing universal good, with which the individual governed 
has little but co-operation to do, and which as often tends to the 
destruction of individuals or races as to their preservation ? 
CIIELONE OBLIQUA. 
t “ Turtle-head ” is the fanciful name applied to this plant in 
North America, and the generic name has a similar origin, both 
referring to the peculiarly arched upper portion of the corolla. 
Several Chelones are known in gardens, but the one of which a 
spray is shown in fig. 41 is probably the most generally grown by 
those who make a speciality of hardy plants. It has no pre¬ 
tensions to be considered a novelty, for it was found in Virginia 
by a Mr. Clayton more than a century and a half ago, about 
which time it was sent to England, and it was cultivated by Mr. 
Miller in 1732. In addition to the undoubted hardiness of the 
plant, at least in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, it possesses 
another valuable recommendation—namely, that it produces its 
bright purplish crimson flowers at the end of summer and in the 
beginning of autumn when the flowers are becoming scarce and 
the borders unattractive. Almost any soil or situation suits it, 
though it thrives most satisfactorily in rich moderately light loam. 
It can be very readily propagated by dividing the plants, pre¬ 
ferably about the present time or a little later, as, if the operation 
is deferred to spring, results are not always such as might be 
desired. Increase may also be effected by means of seeds or 
cuttings. 
C. glabra, though formerly regarded as a distinct species, is now 
considered to be merely a variety of the preceding, which it re¬ 
sembles in most of its characters. C. Lyoni is also another form 
of the genus with pretty purplish flowers, and is well worth 
growing. Several other plants commonly seen under the name 
