Some New Plants.
ABUTILON THOMSONII PLENA.
It is one of the peculiarities of plant culture, that after a certain number of years of cultivation, any plant having the properties of sporting freely, that is, changing greatly from the original wild character of the plant, will become double. In most cases it first arises from seed, but with the plant under notice it appears that it was what is called a bud variation, that is, that from some freak of a particular branch of a plant of the well-known A. Thomsonii, the ordinary single flowers were found to be double. This happening on a plant under the eye of a professional florist was taken off the plant and rooted, and at once became its established character. This phenomena of variation being "fixed" by separate propagation, is by no means rare, and not a few of our choice fruits, flowers, and vegetables had their origin by the same means. It remains to be seen whether in this case it will be of much value except as a curiosity, it having precisely the same leaf markings as the original, which are a very distinct yellow mottling of the leaf in a field of green, and for which the plant is valuable alone, the flowers being quite of a secondary character. The flowers are said to be perfectly double, resembling in form a double hollyhock, color deep orange, shaded and streaked with crimson. This is the first year it has been sent out, and we shall not be surprised if it is soon followed by others, for usually, when the "double" condition of things has arrived no one has a monopoly of the curiosity.
ALTERNANTHERA AUREA NANA.
This is a charming new plant of decided merit to the carpet style of bedding or edging, being very compact in growth, easily kept to a line of the finest character, and producing what is of great importance in the summer, a line of golden yellow. At times the old kind, A. aurea, would come very good, but more often it had far too much of a green shade to furnish the contrast sought after, and, as a result, failed to bring out the effect the planter studied to produce. It is a fitting companion to A. amabilis, A. paronychioides, and A. versicolor, and will be hailed with delight by our park florists and other scientific planters.
BOUVARDIA THOMAS MEEHAN.
Here we have a double scarlet bouvardia from the same raisers, Nanz and Neuner, that astonished the floral world a few years back, with the double white B. Alfred Neuner. This new addition, unlike the old, which was another "bud variation," was secured by a cross between the old B. leiantha, scarlet with a single flower, and Alfred Neuner, double white. If this is the real origin of the kind, which we somewhat doubt, for if our theory is correct, that a certain amount of cultivation predisposes to double variation, then it is not necessary to cross the double, which in fact can not be done with a perfectly double flower—the organs of fructification being wanting with that of a single and seed-producing kind, to account for the origin of a new double.
As is well known the old leiantha is one of the best scarlets yet, and this new candidate for favor is said to unite the brilliant color and profuse blooming qualities of the old favorite B. leiantha with the perfect double flowers of B. Alfred Neuner.
There are now of this class of plants the three colors—white, scarlet, and pink—in double as well as single; for instance, a pink President Garfield sported from and was "fixed" from the white A. Neuner, a year or two ago.