50 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 17, 1889. 
and I should say there is far more chance of obtaining it from the 
original colour, and the farther you get away from it the less chance 
there is. Blue is not obtained by a mixture, but is one of the original 
colours. 
Of course we can go on deepening the reflective colours in the 
Chrysanthemum till eventually we get to black, because black is but a 
dark purple ; it is produced on two ground colours, purple and white. 
When a black Pansy, for instance, is held to a light, the purple shows 
itself plainly enough, and the shading of the white, too, as a rule — 
thus a black Chrysanthemum may originate from a white, through all 
the shades of blush, mauve, and purple. In bringing illustrations of 
other flowers into my remarks I do so but to put more force upon the 
lessons to be learnt from a study of Nature’s laws in regard to colour, 
and to show that it is unreasonable to expect Nature to alter its laws 
at the will of man. As I have said before, Nature will work with man 
so long as he follows its laws. So far as we find out Nature’s secrets, so 
far can we work at will. 
In the following tables I hope to show clearly that the original 
colour of the Chrysanthemum w r as white, and that from this colour in 
systematic order proceed all the hundreds of tints we now find, from 
dark purple on the one side to its equivalent colour on the branch side. 
Original Colour White. 
Gradual change of ground colour 
and same variation as on the 
Gradual variations on the 
original branch. 
original ground colour 
White. 
Cream. 
Blush. 
Sulphur. 
Peach. 
Primrose. 
Pink. 
Yellow. 
Salmon. 
Golden. 
Rose. 
Amber. 
Lilac. 
Orange. 
Mauve. 
Bronze. 
Violet. 
Red. 
Amaranth. 
Crimson. 
Purple. 
Black. 
These are only outlines ; between the several degrees there are 
numerous shades. The various tints found on the white ground flowers 
will create the same tint, or its equivalent, when sporting to the other 
section. Thus, from the original colour we get by minute graduations 
two distinct branches, and I shall further follow this up by showing, 
which I will do in another list of sports produced, what a systematic 
course these sports take. There is no erratic change from one extreme 
to the other, but all in a most regular order. 
I think this is not a subject that has been often entered upon ; why, 
I cannot understand, because there must be a vast amount of informa¬ 
tion to be gathered by anyone following up known facts by careful 
experiments. I read of an instance once where sports of Chrysanthe¬ 
mums were incidentally mentioned ; I think it was a member of the 
Scientific Committee of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society who 
introduced the subject, but the only fact he recorded was that the 
Chrysanthemum did sport, and he illustrated the fact by stating that 
yellow flowers became white ones ; but this was directly contrary to my 
experience with sports, for with the exception of yellow sports from 
white reverting to their original colour through not being properly 
fixed, I have never known an instance where any yellow ground flower 
sported to the original branch side, and this I think is an important 
point to keep in view—viz., a white Chrysanthemum will continually 
sport to a yellow, but never the reverse. Other sports are only in the 
secondary degree, being but variations in the same branch ; these may be 
called sports, but it is in the reflective colour only. The term reflective 
used here is one I have adopted as the most suitable one I can think of 
to illustrate my meaning, but perhaps some explanation may be de¬ 
sirable. We already have such phrases as tinted, flushed, flaked, striped, 
shaded, &c. A white does not cease to be a white because it is tinted; 
it has lost its purity and commenced to assume other colours, but the 
white is still the ground colour. Although the tint may deepen to 
such a degree as to eventually create a deep purple, the white is still 
seen in the reverse of the florets ; the flower as it dies away throws off 
this reflective colour more or less. I have seen the colour in such 
varieties as Madame de Sevin and the old Striatum die away and leave 
nothing but the white ground colour. James Salter, again, throws off 
its mauve reflection and leaves the white Lady Selborne. On the yellow 
branch side most crimson tints die o2 and leave the yellow ground, 
hence these surface colours are reflected different according to the 
ground colour, as pointed out before. 
I have neither the means nor the knowledge for ascertaining any de¬ 
finite cause or the order of things that create these changes ; but it 
seems to me that if such sports are continually occurring, it is surely 
reasonable that these causes could be ascertained. The change must, 1 
think, be simply a chemical one, and by chemical analysis it should be 
investigated. The investigation might be a long and tedious matter, but, 
as I have before hinted, the question opens up an important subject. The 
Chrysanthemum forms a good example to work upon. 
Sports sometimes come in seedlings, sometimes from the root, but 
more generally from the branches. Root sports are very deceptive. If 
we find a single branch sport, we naturally look to that branch entirely 
to fix it. We often find the whole plant sport, and we are apt to call it 
a root sport, but this does not always follow. If a plant sport on, say, 
all three or four branches, may not the change take place at the break 
and affect all the branches as it would one ? It would not then be a 
root sport, and propagation from the root would generally lead to dis¬ 
appointment. I have known valuable sports lost in this way. Even 
when a sport does take place at the root, it never fixes itself. Not only 
will a large per-centage revert at once, but the sport will continually be 
doing so. On the other hand, my experience teaches me a true branch 
sport will fix itself and remain constant. The lesson to be learnt from 
this is, never cut a sportive plant down, but propagate from the branches 
above the break. I should say that the sun is the chief agency that 
works upon the chemical properties of the plants, and the sun being !at 
its full power at the time the Chrysanthemum makes its break, is the 
reason that the plants sport at this particular period. That sports occur 
in seedlings I have had an opportunity of witnessing. I had some seed 
from Madame Desgrange taken from a plant at a time and place where 
no other variety of Chrysanthemum was in bloom. The seedlings came 
all shades of blush and white with one exception, and that had a distinct 
yellow ground. Now as the plant from which the seed was procured 
could not have been crossed with any yellow variety, this must have 
been a sport. 
Another remarkable thing I should like to call attention to is a sort 
of natural affinity in these sports. A variety rarely seems to sport in 
one place alone. Such a variety may go for many years without stow¬ 
ing any inclination to sport, and then all at once sports appear in all 
directions. I used to think this must have been through the change 
being fixed in the root previously, and carried away by propagation, but 
careful inquiry tells me this is not a fact, but that each sport is a 
separate fixture, and as the same thing occurs in nearly every instance 
it seems to show that the same climatic influences work the whole. 
My remarks have been entirely applied to sports of colour ; there 
are at times slight alterations or changes in the plants themselves, blit 
in most instances they are more fanciful than real. I have had number¬ 
less so-called sports submitted to me that have no foundation for their 
being so at all ; in fact, in most instances I have found them wrongly 
named. In some instances pieces from one plant will accidentally take 
root in another pot, and it is difficult to persuade anyone who has little 
knowledge of varieties that they have not actually got a sport. I have 
never known any plant to make any remarkable change, though the 
sport in colour often fixes itself either on a weaker or stronger average 
plant, and the future constitution may be retained accordingly. I can¬ 
not see any reason for this, but it seems so, and we have such instances 
in the Queen of England family. Lord Alcester is undoubtedly an 
improved flower, whereas, on the other hand, Bronze Queen is just the 
reverse. Ralph Brocklebank, again, is a stronger constituted flower than 
ever its parent was, but these changes are but slight. We secure more' 
sports now than we used to, not that there are any greater influenced 
at work, but because growers have more knowledge of sports, and, again, 
there are far more growers, and consequently a wider range for them 
altogether. Notwithstanding this, however, the sports that come beforij 
the public I am inclined to think they form but a small proportion of 
what actually are produced. It may seem a strange thing, too, that we 
rarely hear of sports anywhere but in this country. The reason of this 
iq I consider, that the majority of sports have occurred in the incurved 
varieties, the culture of which until very recently was almost exclusively 
confined to this country. 
The value of sports can best be illustrated from the following. 
Suppose we had to make up a stand of twenty-four distinct varieties 
incurved Chrysanthemums, only being able to show one variety each 
of any one family—only one Queen, one Princess, &c. We now take 
these two, together with Princess Teck, Venus, and Beverley, and 
here we have five original varieties which total up in families to no 
less than twenty-six varieties, or if we add Prince Alfred, Jardin des 
Plantes, Lady Hardinge, Prince of Wales, Mrs. G. Bundle, Novelty, and 
White Globe, we have but twelve varieties, and these total up in families 
to forty distinct flowers, which, together with about five or six others that 
