116 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHL Y 



[April, 



one and a half to two inches in diameter at the 

 ground. Those set six years are twelve feet 

 high, more than three inches in diameter, while 

 a few that have been set eight years are from 

 eighteen to twenty-four feet high and from four 

 to six inches through. The pines are planted 

 out sixteen feet each way. In a few years Mr. 

 Peck will begin to thin out the larches, using 

 them for poles and small fence posts. The land 

 is thought to pay as well in these trees as if 

 planted to ordinary farm crops, while the ad- 

 vantages they afford in protection to other crops 

 and to the farm buildings is inestimable. Mr. 

 Peck believes if twenty per cent, of our old 

 cleared land was planted to forest trees, it would 

 render the remaining eighty per cent, more 

 productive and valuable than the whole now is. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Durability of Timber. — "Creek," writes, 

 and we fully agree, " In your explanation of the 

 reason why reports on the duration of timber 

 vary so, you overlook the fact that good 



healthy trees will make more durable timber 

 than such as are sickly from age or disease. 

 There is great cry about preserving our old 

 forests, but much more wisdom would be shown 

 in the encouragement of new plantations. Tim- 

 ber from old trees is not near so durable as that 

 from trees about middle age." 



Catalpa Bungei. — Storrs, Harrison & Co., 

 Painesville, 0., write : "As there is considerable 

 interest at present manifested in the diflferent 

 varieties of Catalpa, we mail you a pod of Catalpa 

 Bungei. This Catalpa appears to be perfectly 

 hardy here, and a free grower. Trees six years 

 of age are eighteen inches in circumference. 

 We are growing the speciosa quite largely, but 

 do not see as it is any hardier than this one. 

 We imported this under the name of Bungei, 

 but as some of our leading nurserymen claimed 

 Bungei to be a dwarf, not growing more than 

 four or five feet tall, we thought the French 

 nurserymen had made a mistake, and we sup- 

 posed it to be bignanoides, but it differs from 

 that variety even in the seeds." 



[The French nurserymen are sustained by 

 the authority of De Candolle. — Ed. G. M.] 



Natural History and Science. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



CATALPA SPECIOSA. 



BY DR. GEO. ENGELMANN, ST. LOUIS, MO. 



When examining the specimens sent us origi- 

 nally by Dr. Warder as Catalpa bignonioides 

 speciosa, we suggested from the peculiar pec- 

 tinate coma to the seed, that it would propably 

 take rank as a species. By the following from 

 the Botanical Gazette, a cheap but worthy publi- 

 cation, by the way, to which every working 

 botanist should subscribe, — it will be seen that 

 Dr. Engelmann definitely establishes it as such : 



" Catalpa speciosa, Warder. — A middle-sized 

 tree with grayish-brown much cracked or fur- 

 rowed, at last slightly flaky bark and light, 

 yellowish-gray wood; leaves large, truncated or 

 more or less cordate at base, slenderly acumin- 

 ate, soft downy on the under side, inodorous ; 

 flowers in large and loose panicles ; tube of the 



corolla conical, longer than wide, its lower part 

 scarcely protracted ; upper lip before its expan- 

 sion longer than the other lobes and enveloping 

 them, lower lobe bilobed, inside of corolla 

 slightly marked at the throat with red-brown 

 lines and with two yellow bands at the commi- 

 sures of the lowest with the lateral lobes ; sta- 

 mens and style as long as the tube ; pod terete, 

 strongly furrowed ; wings of seed about as long 

 as the seed itself, rounded at the ends and split 

 into a broad coma. 



Common in the low, rich, sometimes over- 

 flown woodlands near the mouth of the Ohio, 

 along the lower course of that river and its con- 

 fluents, and in the adjoining lowlands of the 

 Mississippi ; in the States of Illinois, Indiana, 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas; 

 according to Michaux abounding near the bor- 

 ders of all the rivers which empty into the 

 Mississippi further south ; whether the localities 



