108 
IRREGULAR METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS. 
In flowers irregular metamorphoses are extremely common: they 
consist of a multiplicity of the petals, of a transformation of the petals 
into stamens., and a change in colour or in scent. In roses the multi¬ 
plication of petals is the nearly universal cause of the double state of 
these flowers ; in the rose ceillet and many anemones, impletion depends 
upon the conversion of petals into stamens. 
With regard to colour, its infinite changes and metamorphoses in 
almost every cultivated flower can be can compared to nothing but the 
alterations caused in the plumage of birds or the hair of animals by 
domestication. No cause has ever been assigned for these phenomena, 
neither has any attempt been made to determine the cause in plants. 
We are, however, in possession of the knowledge of some of the 
laws under which change of colour is effected. A blue flower will 
change to white or red, but not to bright yellow ; a bright yellow 
flower will become white or red, but never blue. Thus the hyacinth, 
of which the primitive colour is blue, produces abundance of white and 
red varieties, but nothing that can be compared to bright yellow; the 
yellow hyacinths, so called, being a sort of pale yellow ochre colour, 
verging to green. Again, the ranunculus , which is originally of an 
intense yellow, sports into scarlet, red, purple, and almost any colour 
but blue. White flowers which have a tendency to produce red will/ 
never sport to blue, although they will to yellow ; the rose, for example, 
and chrysanthemums , It is also probable that white flowers with a 
tendency to produce blue will not vary to yellow. 
Scent varies in degree rather than in nature; some plants which are 
but slightly perfumed, as the common China rose, acquire a powerful 
fragrance when converted to the variety called the sweet-scented; but 
there is no decided difference of scent among varieties of the same 
species. 
Metamorphoses of fruit are very common, and administer largely 
to the wants of mankind. They consist of alteration in colour, size, 
flavour, scent, and structure. The wild blue sloe of our hedges has, 
in the course of ages, by successive domestication, been converted into 
the purple, white, and yellow plums of our desserts. The wild crab is 
the original from which have sprung the many coloured and excellent 
varieties of apple; some of which are scentless, others scented like the 
pine-apple and rose. In peas the parchment-like lining of the pod 
occasionally disappears, and the whole substance of the seed-vessel 
consists of lax succulent membrane. 
Having thus passed in review the irregular metamorphoses of plants 
through all the different parts, there still remains a subject on which 
it is requisite to say a few words. This is the permanency of such 
