So far as I have been able to ascertain reversions of this curious carnation to normal flowers have not yet been recorded. Such a modification occurred last summer in my garden on a plant which had not been divided or layered, but on which the slender branches had [229] been left on the stem. Some of them remained true to the varietal type and bore only green spikes. Others reverted wholly or partially to the production of normal flowers. Some branches bore these only, others had spikes and flowers on neighboring twigs, and in still other instances little spikes had been modified in such manner that a more or less well developed flower was preceded by some part of an ear. The proof that this retrograde modification was due to the existence of a character in the latent state was given by the color of the flowers. If the reverted bud had only lost the power of producing spikes, they would evidently simply have returned to the characteristics of the ordinary species, and their color would have been a pale pink. Instead of this, all flowers displayed corollas of a deep brown. They obviously reverted to their special progenitor, the chance variety from which they had sprung, and not to the common prototype of the species. Of course it was not possible to ascertain from which variety the plant had really originated, but the reproduction of any one clearly defined varietal mark is in itself proof enough of their origin, and of the latency of the dark brown flower-color in this special case. A still better proof is afforded by a new type of green dahlia. The ordinary green dahlia [230] has large tufts of green bracts instead of flowering heads, the scales of the receptacle having assumed the texture and venation of leaves, and being in some measure as fleshy. But the green heads retain the form of the ordinary flower-heads, and as they have no real florets that may fade away, they remain unchanged on the plants, and increase in number through the whole summer. The new types of green dahlia however, with which I have now to deal, are distinguished by the elongation of the axis of the head, which is thereby changed into a long leafy stalk, attaining a length of several inches. These stalks continue growing for a very long time, and for the most part die without producing anything else than green fleshy scales.