“IDEAL” FLOWER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20060, 5 October 1939, Page 16

“IDEAL” FLOWER

PERFECTED IN U.S.A. 43 YEARS’ RESEARCH HYBRID MARIGOLD SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 8. After 46 years of searching and hybridising of flowers, David Burpee, cousin of the late Luther Burbank, believes he has at last perfected tilt “ideal flower” for this continent. Mr. Burpee, whose flower ranch is in Santa Barbara county, comes from a long line of flower experts. Besides his relationship to the late Luther Burbank, his father also was a distinguished hybridist. "I was only 15,” he said, “when my father offered me a prize of £2OO if I would develop a yellow sweet pea. I never earned that £2OO, but my work along that line started me in my search for a flower that would survive the heat and cold of all parts of this continent and have at the same time sufficient beauty to make it the country’s ideal flower.” It was 30 years later, he said, thai ha finally found it. The Marigold “It was the marigold, but it took years and years of further search and hybridising to perfect it to what I wanted. In the first place it had many serious disadvantages, the most serious of which was its odor. This, I discovered, came from little oil sack: on the under side of the leaves.” Mr. Burpee then began a worldwide search for a marigold that did not have his disagreeable scent. This was carried on for several years, and finally abandoned. “Within a month after I quit my search.” Mr. Burpee said, “I received a letter from a missionary in China who had discovered an odorless marigold. I had him rush me some seeds and planted them at once on my Californian ranch.” The first flower was small and was sterile. But there was no odour. “In the next one, however, a mutation occurred and produced a flower with female reproductive parts, but no male parts,” he said. “I then conceived the idea of crossing the French marigold—a small red flower with male reproductive parts only—with the large African marigold, which was yellow. “This was done by planting a fiveacre field in alternate rows of French and African marigolds and then putting 600,000 bees in the field.” The result, Mr. Burpee said, is a beautiful red and gold hybrid. They have been flown across the Atlantic to see if they -would stand the change of temperatures and climate with complete success, and he is confident that h'o now has the ideal flower that will thrive in all parts of the continent.