520 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ December 11, 1890, 
upwards from a lake between these two groups, onwards to a bold 
semicircle of timber in the distance, forming one of several vistas 
visible from a common centre. 
Mixed groups are not to be planted exclusively. One vista 
commands a picturesque building on a hillside. Near the building 
there will be a group of Scotch Firs, and lower down the slopes of 
the hill a group of Elms ; at other points groups of Oaks, and 
others of Pinus austriaca, will impart character and dignity in due 
course. The Elms and Oaks will be planted far enough apart to 
ensure full development and really fine timber. The Scotch Firs 
will be so arranged as eventually to form picturesque groups such 
as artists love rather than with a view to very fine specimens.— 
Edward Luckhurst, Warrens, Harold Wood, Romford. 
THE ORIGIN OF THE FLORIST’S CHRYS¬ 
ANTHEMUM. 
[A paper by the late Mr. Shirley Hibberd, read at the Centenary Conference of tlie 
National Chrysanthemum Society, November 11th, 1890.] 
The origin of the flower that commands our homage at this 
season and is the subject of this Centenary festival is a matter of 
some importance both to botanists and horticulturists, and cannot 
be without interest to those who find amusement in speculating on 
the beginning of things, and the histories of the favourites of the 
garden. It may appear to the casual observer of what is now 
passing as a question easily disposed of, for do we not read in the 
books that the Chrysanthemum was introduced to this country 
100 years ago, certainly ; and has been known in Europe 200 years 
probably ; and that China has the honour of having made it as a 
garden flower from one of the wildings of her own woods ? Many 
questions may be disposed of in this easy way for those who are 
content with the dust that may be swept from the surface of a 
subject, but in this solemn assembly, making serious business of 
all that pertains to the history of the golden flower, there must be 
an endeavour made to brush away the superficial dust in order to 
explore what lies beneath. 
There is, then, be it observed, a strong primd facie case for a 
plural origin of the various groups of flowers that are brought into 
the purview by the generic term Chrysanthemum. The Chusan 
Daisy appears far removed from the noble Queen of England or 
the fantastic Spiderkry, the latest of the grotesque forms of the 
flower that Japan has given us. We have Liliputians, Pompons, 
reflexed, and incurved, Japanese of several distinctive characters, 
and single flowers that in some particulars of growth and propor¬ 
tion stand apart from the other groups. When I said the other 
day, in discoursing on the Dahlia, that it is the most variable of 
all known flowers, I had not forgotten the flower that is now before 
us, but I was less sensible than I ought to have been of the immense 
range of its variations both in form, and size, and colour. But 
when I look seriously at the matter I perceive many visible con¬ 
necting links between the several groups, and these are to be traced 
only by a careful diagnosis, which shall distinguish between actual 
differences and mere modifications and variations. An elastic cord 
may be 1 foot long and 1 inch thick, and in that form of great 
strength, but when stretched a touch might snap it; yet it is the 
same cord, and if we are careful not to break it will return to its 
original proportions and qualities, and so prove its identity. I 
would submit the Chrysanthemum to some such test, but the 
moment I contemplate doing so a difficulty arises that appears 
insuperable. We may stretch the flower as we stretched the cord, 
and in fact we have stretched it in every way imaginable, but we 
cannot restore it to its pristine form. We know something of 
analysis in this business, but nothing of synthesis ; we have no 
record of any floral favourite that has been much modified by man 
being actually bred back to its original form of a wild flower. I 
remember at the first Primula Conference Mr. Lynch of the Cam¬ 
bridge Botanic Gardens undertook to breed back the Auricula to 
the wild form out of which it originated, and all that can be said 
further on the subject is that the promise made years ago remains 
unfulfilled, and I will venture to say will so remain for ever and 
ever. The experimental test must be useful in this inquiry, but 
it cannot be final. There remains for us only’the inductive method, 
and in aid of that we have a body of facts of the highest interest 
and value. 
It will be proper to begin with a few elementary particulars for 
the advantage of friends here who have not given any special 
attention to the structure of the flower and the general character 
of the plant. The Chrysanthemum is a compound or compos te 
flower, and may be roughly described as a cluster of distinct flowers 
fused together, and fixed on one centre or receptable. We find in 
a typical flower of any of the higher classes of indigenous plants 
a calyx of green leaves, a corolla of coloured petals, male organs or 
stamens crowned with anthers that diffuse a fertilising polleD, and 
female organs or pistils crowned with sensitive stigmas that receive 
the pollen, and by the stimulus thus communicated to the ovary at 
the bases of the styles or stems of the pistils, the growth of fertile 
seed is promoted, and the proper work of the flower is thus com¬ 
pleted. If you take a flower of a wild Rose you will easily discover 
all these parts, and they combine to represent what I will call unity, 
for the one flower is one flower, and all its parts relate to one centre, 
and the use of every part is in some way to contribute to the pro¬ 
duction of the scarlet hep or berry in which the seeds are formed. 
In the flower of a single Chrysanthemum the corresponding organs 
are all to be found, but modified in form and arrangement. The 
characters that first strike us are the corolla, as we may call it, that 
forms the boundary, and the stamens and pistils that form the 
golden disk. When we remove one of the supposed petals we find 
it to be tubular at the base, and enclosing an imperfect pistil, which 
is often a mere thread without stigmas. Now we know that this is 
not a petal, but a kind of imperfect flower, and we call it a ligulate 
or strap-shaped floret. Analysing the disk by cutting the flower 
through vertically, we find on the receptacle a closely arranged set 
of tubes or narrow cups that terminate above in teeth and below in 
corresponding ovaries. In each of these tubes are stamens in a 
bundle, and through the bundle or fasces rises the pistil crowned 
with two horns that are veritable stigmas. Now we learn the mean¬ 
ing of the arrangement. Each tube is a complete flower, the tube 
itself being the corolla, and the stamens and pistils within rendering- 
it properly hermaphrodite and capable of seed production, which 
the strap-shaped organs of the margin are not, for the pistils there 
are mere signs, and apparently accomplish nothing. We term the 
strap-shaped outer adornments florets of the ray, and the tubular 
flowers within florets of the disk. The golden colour of the disk 
is the result in the first instance of the pollen produced by the 
syngenesious or coherent anthers, which perfect and disperse the 
pollen some days in advance of the protrusion of the stigmas, and 
when these are ready to receive pollen advantageously the pollen of 
the florets to which they belong is all dispersed and gone, and con¬ 
sequently we may regard it as a rule of life with the Chrysanthe¬ 
mum that although the stigmas may receive pollen from florets of 
the same disk, they cannot receive it from the same floret, and will 1 
be very likely, indeed, to receive it from the stamens of another 
flower. The word “flower” I use for convenience solely; the 
proper term is capitulum, because a so-called flower consists, as- 
already explained, of many florets united in one head. 
When we reflect on the number of wild flowers that are fer¬ 
tilised by pollen from other flowers on other plants of their own 
kind, and that many of them are proterandrous or produce their 
pollen in advance of their stigmas, it seems a marvel that they 
should remain constant to a certain typical form, as many appear 
to do for centuries, although exposed to the chances of cross ferti¬ 
lisation. Variations do indeed occur, as every botanist knows full 
well, and yet the constancy of what we call species presents a 
problem of tremendous import for the philosopher. Many plants 
associate in groups which flower simultaneously and so favour a 
settled heredity, and thus the circumstances of place and time con¬ 
tribute to the constancy I am hypothecating. And another cause 
contributes to it, for varieties have a more slender tenure of exist¬ 
ence than settled types, and we speak of the survival of the fittest 
to express our faith in the practice by Nature of a process of 
selection, death being the agency for the removal of variations that 
are not wanted. Thus creation and continuance are both kept in 
check, and types survive variations, except in some peculiar cases,, 
in which they become established to behave themselves as species. 
But when man steps in the case is altered. Anything that differs 
from the accustomed type will suit his taste even if it be useless 
and ugly. A peloric Snapdragon, or a wheat-ear Carnation, or a 
green Rose, or a Chrysanthemum in which the florets of the ray 
have usurped the place of florets of the disk, and so produces what 
we call a “ double ” flower, will afford great delight. His first 
business will be to keep this new creation, whereas, perhaps if he 
had left it alone, death would have swallowed it as a thing unfit. 
This keeping of the curiosities is the beginning of floriculture. A 
variation fires a new enthusiasm ; the variety is cherished, and 
though unable to propagate itself by reason of its barrenness, the 
florist finds means to multiply it, and he takes the hint it offers 
and labours to obtain other variations, and so by degrees becomes 
the master of Nature within certain limits which, indeed, are very 
narrow, and as compared with the great scheme of Nature the work 
of the florist is but trifling. But as an amusement, floriculture 
must have the highest place amongst what may be termed elegant 
pursuits, for its aim is the creation and preservation of floral beauty, 
and its work will be of incalculable value to the philosopher if he 
will but remove the scales of prejudice from his eyes and see what 
he can learn from it. We talk of heredity, and the causes and 
consequences of variation, and sometimes imagine the botanists 
know all about it. The truth is, they know very little about it ; 
