Green Pansies
THE casual observer may perhaps have noticed that interesting law of nature which governs the coloring of flowers, and which confines the hues of a given flower, or perhaps a botanical group of flowers, to two colors and the combination of these colors. The three primary colors—red, yellow, and blue—are rarely to be seen in the blossoms of the same botanical group. Thus we observe roses, hollyhocks, chrysanthemums, and tulips in all shades of white, yellow, pink, red, and crimson, even almost approaching black, and numberless combinations of these colors, but never blue. The same is true with dahlias, zinnias, lilies, gladioli, pinks, and portulacas.
On the other hand, flowers which are notably blue—as in the bellworts, or "Canterbury-bells," and larkspur, which vary from white, through all shades of blue, to purple, pink, and even reds—never show any trace of yellow. This color limitation of blossoms was noted by De Candolle early in the present century, who classified flowers in two series as to their hues. The first, which included the yellow, was called the Xanthic; the second, which omitted the yellow, the Cyanic.
World-wide fame and a comfortable fortune await the florist who shall produce a variety of blue rose, tulip, hollyhock, or dahlia, or a yellow geranium or larkspur, which all persist in their fidelity to their particular color series. And yet nature gives us occasional exceptions which, however, only serve by their contrast to emphasize the universal law. Thus we see the water-lily group—if we include the two separate orders Nymphæa and Nelumbo—with blossoms of pink, yellow, and blue. The water-lilies of this latter color, allied to the Egyptian yellow lotus, which were to be seen in the Union Square fountain, New York, last summer, were almost lost in the azure of the sky which their surrounding waters reflected, and yet they clearly had no right to include blue in their gamut; purple or red possibly, but not blue.
But this is not so remarkable an exception as we find in the hyacinth, in which the three primary colors are to be seen with notable purity—blues, yellows, and reds—and thus with possibilities of almost any conceivable color, under cultivation and careful selection.
Another striking exception, and one which would have puzzled De Candolle for its color classification, is the columbine. One common species of the Eastern United States, Aquilegia canadensis, is of a pure deep scarlet color, as every country boy knows. If we seek for our columbines in the far West we shall miss this familiar type, and find it replaced by another species, A. chrysantha, of a fine clear yellow, or perhaps by its near relative, the A. cœrulea, with its sky-blue corolla, a common species in the region of the Rocky Mountains. Columbines, red, yellow, and blue, are thus to be found in a state of nature, and we thus find other cultivated forms which extend from a pure white through all shades of purple.
The pansy, that protean offspring from lowly "johnny-jumper," occasionally comes very near embracing the entire gamut of color to which its name, Viola tricolor, would seem to entitle it. Blue pansies and yellow pansies we certainly have, but the ruddiest of its rich wine tints, when laid beside the red, red rose, at once confesses its purple, the remnant of blue which it cannot absolutely eliminate.
The blue rose, blue tulip, blue dahlia, and blue carnation have as yet refused to respond to the coaxing arts of the florist, but he has at least succeeded in imposing upon our credulity in a carnation pink of white, streaked with peacock blue. Bouquets of these uncanny-looking blossoms are frequently to be seen in our city flower-booths, but they smack of trickery, and the vendor is rarely seen to look you in the eye as he responds "new variety" to your inquiry as to the peculiar color.
"Are those natural?" I heard a lady ask at a flower-stall recently, referring to these pinks.