98 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[July 
to the L. duration, for although these are said 
to be quite hardy, they are hardy only in the 
same sense and to the same degree as many 
very common plants, notably the common 
Brake, which is indeed quite hardy, but very 
often suffers from late spring frosts. It is there¬ 
fore necessary, either in pot-culture or in the 
open air, to guard against spring frosts as soon 
as the young stems begin to appear above the 
soil.—G, Thomson, Crystal Palace , Sydenham .” 
THE REV. G. JEANS ON THE 
PHILOSOPHY OF FLORISTS’ 
FLOWERS.—IY. 
‘■Gj A pN my former letters, I have been occupied 
^ ra in the comparatively easy task of criti- 
cising the objections made by others. I 
now come to the more hazardous one of build¬ 
ing up a system myself, and giving the objec¬ 
tors an opportunity of treating me as I have 
treated them ; and in truth, I invite, or rather 
request, them to do so. That there is a scien¬ 
tific system at the bottom of the ordinary 
estimates of flowers, I have long been convinced ; 
and if I do not succeed in developing it, the 
fault will be in these papers, which, therefore, 
I should wish to be found fault with, because 
there is now an ample sufficiency of facts 
accumulated for the science of Floriculture to 
be thence ascertained, and to take its place 
with other established systems. It is time for 
some one to do it, if I should fail. 
“ I proceed, therefore, to point out more par¬ 
ticularly my view of the scientific principles on 
which the general agreement among florists, in 
what should be considered points of excellence 
in their flowers, is based. After which, I pur¬ 
pose to apply those principles to some of the 
flowers, as a specimen of what is required 
in all for an acknowledged standard, to be 
referred to both by growers and judges; 
premising, however, that I have not the arrog¬ 
ance to propose this essay as such a standard ; 
nor could it be, for the principles themselves 
must first be sifted by criticism, both friendly 
and unfriendly, until some principles are estab¬ 
lished and recognised, and not till then can 
such a manual be compiled. But this may 
serve as a first attempt towards it, to attract 
others into the same path, in order to weed 
out what is unsound, to prune what is amiss, 
and to supply what is wanting. It will also 
serve to show that there are defined and certain 
boundaries, within which are confined respec¬ 
tively the province of science, within which 
there will always be agreement, and the pro¬ 
vince of taste, which admits of infinite diversity. 
“ And I am pleased at seeing the increase of 
instances of persons conversant with the details 
of such matters, and who probably have not 
turned their attention to the modes by which 
their judgments have been influenced, feeling 
their way intelligibly and successfully to the 
very points which reasoning will demonstrate 
to be the true points of ideal excellence. Mr. 
Kendall has, in the Florist, [1849, p. 13lj 
given us the properties of a good Cineraria ; 
and as far as he has gone, if he had studied 
Aristotle and the Metaphysicians, he could not 
have done it better. His guide probably was 
the experience of a practised and interested 
eye. It will be the province of these Essays 
to show by reason that he is right in every 
particular. 
“ The end proposed by the Creator in the 
arrangement and colours of the petals of a 
flower is that which is pleasant to the eye, and 
the two means by which this is produced are 
form and colour. 
“ Form is available in two respects,— absolute, 
or direct, which is sought for its own sake, in 
that some forms are in their nature more 
pleasing than others, as a curve is more 
graceful than a straight line, and some 
curves than others ; and relative , or indirect, 
which is subsidiary to some other purpose, in 
that some forms are better suited than others 
to set off colours to advantage, as a smooth 
petal exhibits its markings more perfectly than 
a wrinkled one can. 
“ Colour is simply for its own sake ; but it 
produces its effect in two ways—by contrast, as 
in painting light appears to be thrown upon 
any point by placing a shadow beside it; and 
by combination , as purple unites harmoniously 
with either of its constituent elements, red or 
blue, while green will hardly unite with any 
other. Combination, moreover, may take place 
in three ways; where each is preserved, as 
when one colour shades off imperceptibly into 
another ; where distinctness begins to be lost 
by partial fusion, as in the clouded colours ; 
and where the separate elements blend into an 
uniform new tint, as in the endless diversity of 
compound colours. 
“ These are the few and elementary principles 
on which, with the latitude to be allowed for 
tastes, which will be defined hereafter, depends 
the effect of any flower in pleasing the eye. 
And it will be found that these principles are 
strictly scientific, and reducible to rules capable 
of application to each species of flower, so as 
to determine, in a great and ascertainable 
measure, the value of any variety of each 
species. 
“ And in fact, it- is because there is so much 
of scientific rule, founded in nature, in the 
pursuits of florists, that there has been that 
large amount of agreement among them, 
which we find to have obtained in a matter 
which is vulgarly believed to be a mere matter 
of individual taste and caprice. 
“ Form or shape is the figure contained by a 
