Page:Favourite flowers of garden and greenhouse-Vol 1.djvu/23

12 do not produce seeds, the essential organs having been converted into petals by the doubling process. The single and semi-double flowers are the seed-producers, and only the finest of these in form and colour should be allowed to mature their seed vessels. It should bo remembered that it is from seed that variety is obtained. If you have a pet strain you wish to propagate you can be sure of doing so only by root-division. On the other hand, if you are ambitious to raise new varieties you must select plants of good habit with well-formed and finely-coloured ilowers. and by means of a camel-hair brush convey the freshly shed pollen from the anthers of one plant to the stigmas of another. The seed may be sown in a moist warm bed outside, prepared as if for onions, and the soil should be covered with slates or mats till the seeds germinate ; or in seed-pans, filled with light sandy soil, and placed in a cold frame. When the leaves of the seedlings have withered at the end of their first season, sift fresh earth over the bed to the depth of a quarter-inch, and leave them. At the end of their second summer they will be large enough to take up and plant out where they are intended to flower in the following spring. Most of the seedlings will be ordinary varieties, but in all probability new forms will be found. These, of course, should be marked and placed apart at tlie resting-season. Description of Plate 3, Anemone corona ria, showing variation in Plates 3 and 4. f orm anc | co i our f the flowers. The flesh-tinted specimen has had the stamens developed into very slender petals. In the lower Left-hand corner is a stamen removed and enlarged. Fig 1 is a vertical section through the flower after removal of the sepals. The carpels are crowded upon a hollow cone-like receptacle, and surrounded by a great number of stamens. Fig. 2 shows the carpels more clearly after removing both sepals and stamens. Fig. 3 is one carpel detached, showing the style with its stigmatic tip. It develops into a fruit called an aehene, which is like a little nut, with a solitary seed within. Plate 4, Anemone hoi'tensis, showing a few of the variations in form and number of the floral leaves. It will be seen that the broadest of these is very narrow when compared with those of A. corona rt". Fig. 1 represents the tuberous rootstocks with their leaves; Fig 2 is a section through the receptacle corresponding with Fig 1 of Plate 3.