Jealous Roses
Among light, some might say light-headed, articles in the same journal is a well-documented theory that roses and some other flowers are capable of jealousy! A yellow rose planted near a yellow rose with red stripes, much admired by visitors, gradually itself developed red stripes, and various experiments indicated that this was a not uncommon endeavour among the less salient blooms. Well, Wordsworth was brave enough to say of plants: " And I must think, do all I can, That there was pleasure there."
And if pleasure, why not less agreeable feelings? More serionsly, such changes are possible. The colour of flowers is affected by the nature of the light. The morning sun, for example, was shoWn, in one experi- ment, to exercise a much more potent influence on colour than late suns ; and it would be possible that a particular sort of light, in alliance with a particular soil, might produce a similarity of colour. But jealousy!
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