Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/498

 490 NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vu. j™* 21,1913. characters say " Hello ! " This pronun- ciation is now often to be heard in Lincoln- shire also, where formerly " Hollo ! " or " Hullo ! " was always used. The comic American anecdotes, so widely read in England, appear to have familiarized people with the transatlantic variety of the inter- jection. H. O. DOUBLE FLOWERS IN JAPAN. (11 S. vu. 188.) IN 'The Encyclopaedia Britannica,' llth ed., vol. v. art. ' Camellia,' we read :— " Most of the numerous cultivated forms are horticultural products of C. japonica, a native of China and Japan, which was introduced into Europe by Lord Petre in 1739. The wild plant has red flowers, recalling those of the wild rose, but most of the cultivated forms are double. In the variety ancmonaeflora nearly all the stamens have become transformed into small pctaloid structures which give the flower the nppearance of a double anemone." To some hasty readers this passage might sound as if affirming all double strains of Camellia japonica to be the iasues of its European cultivation after 1739. But the truth stands quite otherwise. Li Shi- Chin's ' System of Materia Medica,' 1578, testifies to the then existence of certain double forms in China. The ' Annals of Japan,' 720, torn, xxix., records that in the year 684 a provincial presented to the Court a white-bloomed C. japonica, which proves the Japanese to have paid so early an attention to this plant's varia- tions. Since 1615, its competitive shows became in great vogue, culminating in a catalogue published in 1694, giving al- together more than two hundred, mostly double, forms (Kitamura, ' Kiyu Shoran,' 1830, torn. xii.). This number, however, seems now to have dwindled into but one hundred and odd (Miyoshi. ' Lectures on Botany,' Tokio, 1906, vol. ii. p. 725). Dr. Miyoshi (ut supra, pp. 716-32) designates as the Japanese flowers most wonderfully prolific of garden forms the native cherry (sakura, or Primus pseudo-cerasus), the so-called plum (P. Mume), the Camellia japonica, the chrysanthemum, the tree peony, the azaleas (several natural varieties of Rhododendron indicum, R. ledifolium, Ac.), the morning-glory (Pharbitis hederacea), and the Iris Kaempferi, each of these having given rise to a large or small num- ber of double races. Moreover, Japan produces many native and introduced flowering plants with double or semi- double horticultural forms. Merely for exemplification's sake, I give below a ran- dom list of them compiled from a few books and living specimens at hand :— Sagitta sagiliifolia; Narcissus Tazetta. var. chinensis; N. jonqutila; Hemero- callis flava ; Porlulaca grandiflora ; Dian- thus caryophyttus ; D. barbatus; D. chinen- sis ; Matthiola, incana ; Papaver Rhoeas ; P. aomniferum,; Nelumbo nucifera; Xu- phar japonicum; Paionia albiflora; Cle- matis florida; C. patens; Adonis ramosa ; Ranunculus japonic/us ; Pirus apectabUis ; Prunus japonica; P. persica; Spiraea prunifolia ; Kerria japonica; Rosa rugosa , R. indica; R. microphylla ; R. Icevigata ; R. Banksios; Rubus rosifolius, var. coro- narius; Impatiena bolsamina ; Althaea rosea; Hibiscus syriacus; H. mutabilis ; Camellia Sasanqua ; C, reticulata; Punica granatum ; Jasminum Sambac; Petunia violacea ; Nerium odorum ; Serissa foetida ; Gardenia florida; Primula cortusoides ; Platycodon grandiflorus; Helianthus annuus ; Dahlia variabilis; Senecio campestris ; Inula britannica; Calendula arvensis ; CaUistephus chinensis; Bettia peretinia. To elucidate the old aphorism, " The Creator makes nothing very perfect," the observant Chinese sages have frequently adduced double blossoms never ripening into any good fruits (Kaibara. ' Materia Medica of Japan,' 1708, Introduction) ; and proverbially well known in Japan is a poem of Prince Kaneakira (d. 987) com- miserating the total absence of fruits from the double races of Kerria japonica. These moralizations set apart, I cannot recall even a single instance of the Japanese or Chinese ever having disliked to grow double flowers. Since early days, however, there has been a good deal of difference of Japanese opinion as to whether single or double flowers are aesthetically superior. As a matter of course, this debate would never meet with any satisfactory decision, Sua cuique quum sit animi cogitatio folorque proprius, and because all those opinions, so varied and mutually opposed in details as they are. agree in acknowledging the essential truth that all attractive flowers, both single and double, have each its own points of beauty, able to make its full display only if felicitously associated with corre- sponding environments, circumstances, occasions, attendants, visitors, and what