December is, 1690. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
537 
the organs of reproduction, so that ligulate and incurving florets 
are alone produced, and to expect seeds from such perfect florets 
is as vain as to look for lunar caustic in moonbeams. But warmth 
causes the florets to reflect or to curve outwards, and it favours the 
retention in the centre of the flower or capitule of a few tubular 
florets, and thus while in a warm climate it is impossible to grow 
the incurved varieties to perfection, the Japanese varieties attain 
to fine proportions, and to secure seed it is not only possible but 
■easy. I know that seed can be produced, and has often been pro¬ 
duced in this country, but you must permit me to deal with this 
subject in this broad manner or my story will have no end, unless, 
indeed, it makes an end of me. But observe that in the British 
Islands and the north of France, Belgium, and Holland, the in¬ 
curved Chrysanthemums are well grown, and have much beauty, 
but in the south of France, and generally in the United States, the 
summers are too hot for them, and the more fantastic kinds that 
refuse to ineurve with geometrical precision are the favourites, and 
the production of seed presents no special difficulty. Thus the 
favourites of the several countries have been determined by Nature 
much more than by man. A man may have longings for some¬ 
thing he can obtain, but the regard that comes of familiarity is 
impossible. The longing for a rarity is very different to the love of 
a homely toy, and our intense admiration of the incurved flowers 
is in great part the consequence of the fact that our circumstances 
enable U3 to grow it to a high perfection. 
The variations of colour are of great importance. There are 
'but two colours in our flower, yellow and purple. Of white I say 
mothing, for it is simply the absence of colour ; of yellow I will 
say that the Chrysanthemum attains to perfection of colour in 
yellow only, for in such a flower as Jardin des Plantes we have the 
purest yellow, and the colour is such as the artist would regard as 
perfect impasto, or a French florist might say “well ground in.” 
You will say we have red, crimson, lilac, mauve, and so forth. I 
say these are all variations of purple, or they are mixtures caused 
by the intrusion of yellow, as in the colours we call orange, 
-chestnut, and golden bronze. Upon the blue tone that is the 
basis of purple disappearing, the yellow steps in, and then we have 
brown, or bronze, in place of purple, but equally an impure 
secondary or tertiary colour, often very beautiful, and more so 
by association with its own green leaves. These do more for 
colours than we know of until the leaves are. removed, and the 
flowers are put in bunches of one colour to look like Cauliflowers 
fffiat have been dipped in a dye vat, and then are very gay, though 
destitute of beauty. And this purple, be it observed, is not 
well ground in. It is, in fact, not properly skin deep, and is 
rather a discolouration than a proper colour, for it belongs to the 
upper face of the florets, which on the under side are white, 
which causes the silvery turn-over of the incurved, and the 
curious gleamiugs of light in other varieties that show the under 
■sides of their florets. I like the manner in which Mr. Norman 
Davis, in his paper on “ Sports ” read last year, speaks of these 
•colours as “ reflective.” When a good distinctive term like this is 
proposed I make it a rule to adopt it, to prevent the manufacture 
of another, and the evils of collision that may ensue. He calls the 
purple tones reflective because they are not properly integral, and 
you may illustrate this by comparing the florets of a yellow variety 
with those of any other colour. There is no white underside in 
the yellow flower ; the colour is integral, and it is the only colour 
that is so ; all the others are superficial or reflective, and they 
illustrate the law of compensation in colours, for the purple is the 
■complementary of yellow, and just the variation a yellow flower 
should aim at to keep within the limits of chromatic respectability. 
The law that appears to govern sports is one that affords direct 
hints of the origin of the Chrysanthemum. Mr. Norman Davis, 
arguing from the white basis of the rose and purple flowers, and 
the frequent occurrence of white flowers both in seedlings and 
sports, expresses his belief that the flower was originally white, 
and the supposition illustrates a remark by Mr. Burbidge, in his 
paper read last year at Chiswick, that our favourite is a kind of 
glorified Ox-eye Daisy endeavouring to become a tree. Madame 
Desgrange may be taken as an example of many instances. The 
original is white, and when immature it has a yellowish centre. 
If carefully examined it will be seen that this colour is akin 
to the green tint that occasionally appears in the centre of 
Lord of the Isles and other varieties while the flowers are 
young and disappears as they open out. But, however we 
may explain the yellow tint in the centre of Madame Desgrange, 
it certainly gives a hint of a kind of desire in the flower to become 
yellow, and this desire is gratified in G. Wermig. In like manner 
Lady Selborne has given a yellow sport; Beverley, Empress of 
India, Queen of England, Mrs. Gr. Rundle, White Globe, White 
Trevenna, White Cedo, and Snowdrop—to mention only a few out 
of many—have in like manner sported from white or blush to 
yellow ; but there is, on the other hand, no instance of a decided I 
sport of a yellow to a wffiite. Yellow flowers give deeper toned 
and bronzy sports, as, for example, Golden Annie Salter becomes 
Orange Annie Salter, the pure Yellow Jardin sports to Bronze 
Jardin ; the white grounds are capable of anything known in the 
way of sports, for although we know of no sport from white to 
marone or chestnut, yet as the crimson is a reflective colour on a 
yellow ground, the white may first produce a yellow, and that may 
evolve the tone of red required for the chestnut. That sports have 
occurred most frequently in the incurved group is a fact demanding 
consideration. Is it because these are the farthest removed in form 
and constitution from the original type ? or is it that, having been 
the most carefully cultivated and the most closely observed during 
a run of fifty or more years, the minutest variations of these have 
obtained skilled attention, while sports in other branches of the 
family have often passed unheeded to oblivion, in some cases not 
having been seen at all, and in many not cared for ? It is impossible 
to answer these questions, but they are pertinent to the business 
before us, for the incurved flowers are in the most helpless condi¬ 
tion of any of their family through complete sterilisation, and as 
they cast the burden of increasing their mere number on the culti¬ 
vator, they take to a sportive habit to make amends for incapacity 
to vary through the agency of seeds ? I offer these suggestions in 
all seriousness, for while we do not allow that plants possess volition, 
we are bound to assume that they possess it when endeavouring to 
sum up in brief the collective result of a complication of influences 
and circumstances. When we say that a garden flower casts upon 
its owner the charge of perpetuating it, that is like stating in the 
concrete that as cultivation renders it less fertile and less hardy, 
it must cease to exist as a subject for the florist unless assisted by 
the art that has shaped its form in a manner antagonistic to its 
welfare. 
Passing from the comparatively trivial characters derived from 
colour, let us look a little closer into the plant. The small wiry 
Liliputians differ by many degrees from the large incurved varieties, 
and these again from the Japanese. The smaller kinds have thin 
much-cut leaves and small flower-heads of a chaffy texture, the 
florets very closely set, and the capitules as round as buttons. 
Seedlings of these produce a large proportion of yellow flowers, 
and often we find amongst them copies of the wild Chrysanthemum 
indicum so nearly identical with specimens obtained from China 
and India that cultivation appears scarcely to have changed it 
The speculative cultivator must often have asked himself the 
question, Is it possible to obtain from any of these a proper incurved 
or Japanese variety? and after taxing his memory for the results 
of his own observations, and of reports current on the origination 
of well-known varieties, he would give a negative reply and dismiss 
the matter with the epithet, “impossible.” But this Chrysan¬ 
themum indicum is the reputed parent of all our varieties, and 
there has been some robust faith shown in its pliability, or perhaps 
the declaration having been made at hazard has been accepted by 
one part of mankind for lack of a better explanation, and by another 
part in accordance with the schoolboy doctrine, that whatever is 
seen in print must be true. 
But we have not been without witness to an explanation, 
possibly better. In 1792 Ramatuelle, in “ Journal d’Histoire 
Naturelle,” vol. ii., page 240, described the old purple Kiku, that 
was afterwards figured in the “ Botanical Magazine,” declared it to 
be distinct from the Linnaein C. indicum, and named it Chrysan¬ 
themum morifolium, the Mulberry-leaved Chrysanthemum—a quite 
appropriate name, for the leaf, especially as figured in B. M. 327, 
bears a striking resemblance in general outline to the leaf of 
the white Mulberry. At the Chiswick Conference Mr. W. B. 
Hemsley, F.R.S., directed attention to this point, and illustrated it 
by specimens recently collected by Dr. Henry in Central China. 
There is a slender form of the plant named gracile, and Mr. 
Hemsley named the plant obtained by Dr. Henry vestitum. He 
has since cancelled vestitum, and has assigned gracile a place as a 
slender variety of C. morifolium. This slender plant is found in 
North-west China, and its characters appear prominently in what 
we know as Chinese Chrysanthemums, more particularly those of 
the incurved and reflexed groups. The typical C. morifolium 
appears to show itself plainly in the Japanese group, the leaves of 
which are thicker and more downy, and the involucral bracts are 
often clothed with a fine pubescence. Maximowicz describes a 
plant as morifolium that cannot be accepted as such, and in respect 
of which there is not enough known to enable us to speculate upon 
it. But it appears that Dr. Henry has found the true morifolium, 
and that it answers admirably for a place in our charmed circle, 
The plant is robust, with thick leathery leaves, very variable in 
shape and degree of cutting, and clothed with a grey tomentum. 
The case then stands thus as the result of the inquiry, that 
Liliputians and Pompons are garden forms of Chrysanthemum 
indicum, while the whole of the larger kinds (reflexed, incurved^ 
and Japanese) are garden forms of Chrysanthemum sinense (syn. 
