54 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[February^ 



Natural History and Science. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



Botany of California. — The first volume 

 was issued several }^ears ago. The other vol- 

 umes are approaching completion. The work 

 of some of the coadjutors have been issued in ad- 

 vance sheets; at least we have before us the 

 Oaks and Pines by Dr. Engelmann. From this 

 it appears that up to the present time, fourteen 

 distinct species of Oaks have been discovered 

 in California. These are Quercus lobata, Gar- 

 ryana, Douglasii, Breweri, undulata, (also in 

 Rocky Mountains) dumosa, oblongifolia, chry- 

 solepis, tomentilla, Palmeri, agrifolia, Wisli- 

 zeni, Kelloggii, and densiflora. These Oaks par- 

 take rather of the Mexican than the Atlan- 

 tic characteristics of the family, and few proba- 

 bly will prove hardy on the Eastern part of the 

 continent. Of Abies (which in our gardens we 

 have hitherto known as Picea) there are five in 

 California, — bracteata, grandis, concolor, nobilis 

 and magnifica. Our old friend, Abies Douglasii, 

 is, however, now to be neither Abies nor Picea, 

 but " Pseudo-tsuga Douglasii." It is the only 

 Californian representative of the genus. The 

 true Hemlocks are Tsuga, of which Mertensiana 

 and Pattoniana make up all. Of Piceas, (our 

 old Abies) there is now but one, that which we 

 once knew as Abies Menziesii, this is now 

 Picea Sitckensis. Dr. Engelmann finds this to 

 be an earlier name than Menziesii, and though 

 this change will entail much trouble on nurser}'^- 

 men, it is a change which ought to be made, for 

 it is to the advantage of all of us that the rule 

 of priority should be inflexible. It is only be- 

 cause of the respect paid to it that we can get 

 along at all. Of the true Pines, Pinus, Dr. En- 

 gelmann finds fourteen in California. 1, Monti- 

 cola; 2, Lambertiana; 3, flexilis ; 4, mono- 

 phylla; 5, Parryana; 6, Balfouriana (of which 

 he now makes aristata a variety); 7, Torreyana; 

 8, ponderosa; 9, contorta; 10, Sabiniana; 11, 

 Coulteri; 12, insignis ; 13, tuberculata; 14, mu- 

 ricata. Of these, 14, 13, 12, are not hardy in 

 Philadelphia; 11, 10 hardy only when well 

 screened from wind, — the others do tolerably, 

 but suffer from fungi. 



"Wearing out of "Varieties.— F. G. says 

 "What is the received belief as to the wearing^ 

 out of varieties ? My Early Rose Potatoes da 

 not certainly do as they once did, and this seems 

 to be true of other kinds. Is it not the same 

 with fruits ? Please say decidedly, will varieties 

 wear out or will they not?" 



[Yea, verily, varieties will run out, — and yet 

 again they will not run out. If your potato patch 

 has the potato stems bored by the Baridius, or 

 the leaves badly eaten by the Doryphora, or 

 blistered or burned by the Perenospora, or root- 

 ed out by the Homo before they are mature ; or 

 suffer in any way whatever injury to plant or 

 foliage, though to all appearances the "mur- 

 phies" may be excellent, there will be a certain 

 running out in a few years. But if your Early 

 Rose, or any other variety be perfectly sound 

 and healthy, — if your potato plant goes on grow- 

 ing from spring to the autumn, unto in short its 

 natural period of rest, flowering and fruiting its 

 little seed apples, as nature intended it should, 

 that variety will never "run out." They run 

 out from perpetual accumulations of weaknesses, 

 but not from anything in nature so far as we 

 know.— Ed. G. M.] 



Science by the Rev. Joseph Cook. — This 

 distinguished gentleman loves to show up what 

 he regards as the weakness of many modern 

 teachers of science, but his lectures show that he 

 is very ignorant of the sciences he professes to 

 review. In a recent address, we have the follow- 

 ing choice bit, which, among a vast amount of 

 agricultural nonsense in regard to Colorado, will 

 make the botanist smile : 



"Here grows the strangely nutritious buffalo 

 grass, which amazed me by its sweetness when 

 I plucked tufts of it near Cheyenne." 



Those who have collected the Buchloe dacty- 

 loides have hardly found it at Cheyenne or any- 

 where high in the mountains of Colorado, for it 

 is a denizen of the plains, and the idea of " pluck- 

 ing tufts" of a creeping plant which rarely grows 

 more than three or four inches high, is as "amaz- 

 ing" as the "sweetness" which the Reverend 

 gentleman professes to have found. Whether 

 he ate the grass like Xebnchadnezzar in order to 

 ascertain its "amazing sweetness," or whether 



