ISfovember 29, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
199 
with Nature, and I may say under her dictation, with¬ 
out exactly knowing it. The incurved flower when 
perfect is absolutely sterile ; in a cold climate this is 
possible, for cold causes the florets to curve inward, and 
suppresses 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 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 is not only possible, but easy. I know 
seed can be produced and has often been produced 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 incurved Chrysan¬ 
themums are well grown and have much beautv, 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 incurve 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 something he cannot 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 circum¬ 
stances enable us to grow it to a high perfection. 
The variations of colour arc of great importance. 
There are but two colours in our flower, yellow and 
purple. Of white I say nothing, for it is simply the 
absence of colour ; of yellow I will say that the Chry¬ 
santhemum attains perfection of colour in yellow only. 
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. lou will say we have red, crimson, lilac, 
mauve, and so forth. I say these are all variations of 
puiple, 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 the 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 Cauli¬ 
flowers that 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 discolour¬ 
ation than a proper colour, for it belongs to the upper 
face of the florets, which on the underside are white, 
which causes the silvery turn-over of the incurved, and 
the curious gleamings of light in other varieties that 
show the undersides of their florets. I like the manner 
in which Mr. hi orman 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 should aim at to 
^eep 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,'' ex¬ 
presses 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 
Desgranges may be taken as an example of many 
instances. The original is white, and when imma¬ 
ture it has a yellowish centre. If carefully ex¬ 
amined 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 disappear as they open out. But 
however we may explain the yellow tint in the centre 
of Madame Desgranges, it certainly gives a hint of a 
kind of desire in the flower to become yellow, and this 
desire is gratified inG. 'W'ermig, In like manner Lady 
Selborne has given a yellow sport ; Beverley, Empress 
of India, Queen of England, Mrs. G. Rundle, White 
Globe, White Trevenna, White Cedo Nulli, and Snow¬ 
drop—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 
sport of a yellow to white. 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 
maroon 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 condition of any of their family through 
complete sterilization, and as they cast the burden of 
increasing their mere number on the cultivator, 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 perpe¬ 
tuating 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 we 
often find amongst them copies of the wild Chrysan¬ 
themum 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 man¬ 
kind 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 ex¬ 
planation, possibly better. In 1792, Ramatuelle, in 
Journal d’Histoire Naturelle, vol. ii., p. 240, described 
the old purple Kiku, that was afterwards figured in the 
Botanical Magazine, declared it to be distinct from the 
Linnaean C. indicum, and named it Chrysanthemum 
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 
"V estitum, 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 Chrysan¬ 
themums, 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. Maxi- 
mowicz describes a plant as C. 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 C. mori¬ 
folium, 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 enquiry, 
that Lilliputians 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. C. 
morifolium), the first two groups being descended from 
the variety Gracile, the third from the true C. sinense, 
the most robust of all. 
It must be observed here that the flower has certainly 
been cultivated in China three thousand years, and 
probably five thousand years, and we are absolutely 
■without record of the manner in which the Chinese 
obtained it, but the actual vegetation of to-day in that 
country suggests the explanations that have been offered. 
Now it must be admitted that the two reputed species, 
C. indicum and C. sinense, though for botanical purposes 
distinct, are so nearly related that the speculative 
mind is inevitably carried back to the time when one 
species became two through the influence of circum¬ 
stances. The w’eaker C. indicum may have produced in 
travelling south the stronger C. sinense, but it is much 
more likely that the stronger C. sinense, in travelling 
north, degenerated to C. indicum, and that a yellow 
flowered form proved itself the most capable of with¬ 
standing unfavourable influences ; that in fact we have 
here a striking example of the survival of the fittest. 
Another separation gives us C. sinense in a weaker 
form, bearing the name Gracile, and thus we have 
three possible parental forms to generate the three 
great families, the Pompons, the Incurved, and the 
Japanese, and they thus stand in proper order as to 
relative vigour and the magnitude of their several parts. 
This view of the case establishes the unity afar off, 
of the three forms now known as occurring wild in 
China. Me are to regard them as three forms of a 
species that, as such, no longer exists, having split up 
into these three sub-species or varieties. Call them 
what you will, the botanist must begin somewhere, and 
if he insists on calling them species, there is no reason 
in the world why we, who view things so differently, 
should dispute with him. But even now the matter is 
not absolutely settled, for I am bound to return to the 
primary proposition and speak to that before I 
conclude. 
You propose to me to declare the origin of the 
florists Chrysanthemum. Now the Pompon forms 
are not florists’ Chrysanthemums. The Japs are, 
perhaps ; the incurved certainly are, and for present 
purposes I declare this group to be Chrysanthemum 
sinense. If you ask in what, as regards origin, the 
incurved differ from the Japs, I answer, the first are 
from the slender plant that is found in North-western 
China, and the Japs represent the stouter plant found in 
the warmer zone. Here, then, in the original geography 
of the species we seem to have an explanation of the 
reason why our best reflexed and incurved varieties are 
so well adapted for cultivation in this country, and in 
northern Europe generally, while the Japs are more at 
home in the south, and with us are less hardy than the 
others. The first and hardiest group represent the North¬ 
western Gracile from C. sinense ; the more vigorous 
and less hardy Japs represent the true C. morifolium or 
Central China form of C. sinense ; and thus we establish 
our florists’ Chrysanthemum as of pure descent, its 
innumerable varieties being of its own making, and all 
of them descendants of a white-rayed flower capable of. 
sporting to yellow, and by reflective sports producing 
all shades of colour, while avoiding the two primaries, 
pure red and true blue. That we shall ever have these 
colours is quite unlikely, and if the theory of the 
flower now presented is a sound one, it may be said in 
a word, that to hope for red or blue is but a forlorn 
hope, and may with advantage be abandoned. 
