Vie flowers when restarted from dor¬ 
mancy. All these happenings seem to 
be ^manifestations of the natural varia- 
bilit)\)f the Gesneriaccae , a well-docu- 
mentedNcharacteristic which is the de¬ 
light as wbll as the despair of the grow¬ 
ing legion <r£ gesneriad fanciers. 
Doubli^Gloxinias of 
Formed Years 
Before the surprise appearance in 
1845 of gloxinia FyfiNaa, the first one 
to have upright flowersNall gloxinias 
were of the nodding types. It is not 
surprising, therefore, that the earliest 
account of a double gloxinia deals with 
one of the so-called “slipper” or Nroop- 
ing varieties. Writing about it in\the 
Journal of Horticulture, Cottage 
Gardener, and Country Gentleman ish 
sue of February 2, 1864, the editors, 
George W. Johnson and Robert Hogg, 
made an observation which is being 
echoed more or less by gloxinia grow¬ 
ers today, as they note the fuss that 
is being made about double-flowering 
types. 
To Correspondents. Double Glox¬ 
inias. (Rev. A.F.).— we know of 
no reason why gloxinia flowers 
should not be obtained double, for 
other campanulate corollas are so 
transformed. The accompanying 
is the commencement of such a 
change, and is the portrait of one 
of several similar flowers exhibited 
before the Floral Committee of 
the Royal Horticultural Society. 
We agree with the Committee in 
thinking it no improvement to the 
flower. 
A decade later, Thomas Veitch and 
Sons of Chelsea, in London, apparently 
marketed two cultivars of upright flow¬ 
ering double gloxinias, sometime before 
1877. In his catalog for 1877, the Bel¬ 
gian nurseryman, Louis de Smet of 
Ledeberg-lez-Gand, listed ‘John Gray’ 
and ‘Lady Cremorne’, describing them 
as “double corolla.” 
Two years later, Louis Van Houtte 
in Belgium and Anthony Roozen Sc 
Sons in Overveen, near Haarlem, Hol¬ 
land, listed these same double-flowered 
gloxinia cultivars in their respective 
catalogs. Van Houtte’s 1879 price list 
attributed both cultivars to Veitch and 
identified them as upright flowers. In 
describing ‘Lady Cremorne’, he speaks 
of “a new type of flower adorned with 
an elegant, lively rosy and white tucker 
inside of throat, very lively dark rose.” 
Apparently no other nurserymen took 
up these novelties, either in England 
or on the continent, and they soon dis¬ 
appeared from catalogs. 
All American Double Gloxinias 
Both upright (Fyfiana) and nod¬ 
ding (Maxima type) double gloxinias 
were shown at the 1959 New York 
International Flower Show. At the 
1958 show there had been two or three 
entries of Pullen Strain Double Glox¬ 
inias. The 1959 entries were note¬ 
worthy not only for the fact that both 
upright and nodding flowers were 
shown, but also because these double 
gloxinia plants had been bred in the 
United States by Bruce A. Thompson 
of Philadelphia. 
The Thompson Double Gloxinia flow¬ 
ers are generally red or rose-colored. 
Some have a red limb and white co- 
roRa tube. All are completely double 
flowXrs of the “hose in hose” type that 
is farnHiar in campanulas. A Thompson 
Double Gloxinia flower, red with white 
tube, which I examined, had a six- 
part calyx, \ six-lobed outer corolla, 
and a seven-part inner corolla. The 
outer corolla w&s unadorned, but the 
inner tube had three partly developed 
petals on its oute\ surface and four 
similar “tuckers” onVhe inside; all of 
them in different stagek^pf under-devel¬ 
opment. This flower lacked a perfect 
style, but it had a mulrblied organ 
composed of six fused shafts, one of 
them showing petal color aN its tip. 
There were in the disk five glSnds of 
normal form plus one broad threeXobed 
gland of unusual form. \ 
Mr. Thompson also has produced\ 
double gloxinia with deep purple limb > 
and tube of paler color. A flower of 
this type showed two complete corolla 
tubes of six lobes each, a six-parted 
calyx, and six glands in the disk. In ad¬ 
dition to an apparently perfect style 
and stigma, there was a second “style” 
composed of five or six columns fused 
together and ending in imperfect stig¬ 
mas. None of the Thompson Double 
Gloxinia flowers, of course, have any 
filaments; those organs have been de¬ 
veloped into petalage. 
Mr. Thompson, who grows his plants 
in the basement of an apartment build¬ 
ing, under fluorescent lights, started 
with a Pullen Double Gloxinia plant. 
He fertilized the double flower with 
pollen from a Thompson Hybrid Glox¬ 
inia selected from one of the distinctive 
strains he had successfully developed 
during the past several years. Mr. 
Thompson is a hobbyist grower who 
does not sell plants or seed, but there is 
a possibility that one of the house plant 
nurseries dealing in gesneriads may of¬ 
fer the Thompson Double Gloxinias 
for public sale in the near future. 
In Warsaw, New York, Henry Ten 
Hagen, the African violet grower, has 
produced a strain of double-flowering 
gloxinias by fertilizing a Pullen Double 
Gloxinia having red and white flowers 
by means of pollen from a blue-colored 
Buell Hybrid Gloxinia. People who 
have seen the resulting population con¬ 
sider them attractive. Steps are being 
taken to build up a sufficient stock of 
the I en Hagen Double Gloxinias so 
that they can be offered commercially. 
A REVIEW (from page 4) 
place, printer, date; number of vol¬ 
umes; 4) title-page; 5) collation; 6) 
description of the Hunt Library copy; 
7) published references and location of 
other copies; and 8) explanatory notes. 
Needless to say, this Catalogue is truly 
a mine of bibliographic information for 
all time. 
I he “Appendix” describes fifty-six 
important early books that have ap¬ 
peared as reprints or transcripts or in 
facsimile form since 1700. Volume I 
ends with an extensive bibliography of 
reference books; twenty-four well-se¬ 
lected collotype plates of illustrations 
and title-pages arranged in chronologi¬ 
cal order and related by number to the 
corresponding entry in the Catalogue; 
and an unusually comprehensive Index. 
This reviewer would be committing 
sa crime of omission if he did not men- 
tVn the beautiful appearance of the 
book itself. The composition and press- 
work by The Anthoensen Press, on 
excellku:, specially watermarked paper, 
is outstanding for its aesthetic quality 
and its accuracy; the binding is not 
only handsoh^e but also sufficiently 
sturdy even for\a reference book that 
must withstand as'much use as this one 
will obviously receive 
JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 19 6 0 
7 
