1880.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



243 



son read a letter from Dr. Watkins, of Georgia, 

 giving a list of twelve varieties of apples which 

 his experience has proven best adapted to the 

 Southern climate. The list embraces the Red 

 June, the Astrachan, the Horse, Southern 

 Greening and others, the names of which your 

 reporter did not catch. 



SCRAPS AND QUERIES. 



Yellows in the Peach.— F., Trenton, N. J , 

 writes: "In a recent number of the Rural Neiv 

 Yorker, a correspondent expresses an opinion 

 that pollen from a diseased Peach tree used in 

 fertilizing the flower of a healthy tree, would 

 communicate the disease to the fruit, and in this 

 way a healthy tree might produce seedlings 

 which would have the yellows. As you have 

 given some thought to this matter of Peach yel- 

 lows, what do you think of this theory ? [That 

 the correspondent of the Rural New Yorker is 

 undoubtedly correct. — Ed. G. M.l 



Fruit Culture in North Carolina. — N. W. C, 

 Red Plains, N. C, writes : " Our country nere 

 will, in a few years, become one of the greatest 

 fruit sections in the land, though this present 

 season the fruit crop is very short, except the 

 grape, which shows fair for a plentiful crop. 



The Orange Gooseberry. — H. M. Engle, 

 Marietta, Pa., writes : " We send you to-day 

 Orange, Cluster and Houghton Gooseberries. 

 You can judge their comparative earliness. We 

 find the Cluster sold for Houghton, but the lat- 

 ter, — true, — has stronger thorns, more drooping 

 habit, and never colors dark like Cluster. The 

 Orange ripens invariably a week to ten days 

 earlier than any other Gooseberry we have seen, 

 and in quality consider it superior to any of the 

 American Gooseberries. It has been almost 

 neglected, but we intend multiplying it. What 

 do you think of it? 



[It seems like a very desirable variety. — 

 Ed. G M.] 



Forestry. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



THE CONFUSED CATALPAS. 



BY PROF. C. S. SARGENT, BROOKLINE, MASS 



Considerable confusion still exists in some 

 quarters, it would seem, as to which of the two 

 Asiatic Catalpas, now in general cultivation in 

 this country, is Catalpa Ksempferi, and which is 

 the Chinese C. Bungei. Of the two plants in 

 question, one is a small tree 15 to 20 feet in 

 height, with ovate leaves deeply heart-shaped at 

 the base ; small flowers and very slender pods. 

 This plant flowers and ripens its seeds very 

 freely. The other Catalpa, only known I believe 

 in this country as a low wide-spreading bush, 

 has narrow^ long pointed leaves, wedge shaped 

 at the base; this plant as yet shows no inclina- 

 tion to flower. 



On the strength of the reference in De Can- 

 dolle's Prodromus (Vol. ix p. 226) it is insisted 

 (by the editor of the Gardener's Monthly) that ; 

 the plant which, under the name of Ksempferi, j 

 is doubtfully referred to Catalpa bignonioides as j 

 to variety, is the dwarf plant with wedge-shaped 

 leaves. De Candolle was, himself says, in 

 doubt whether the Japanese plant was not C. | 

 bignonioides cultivated in Japan from America, ' 



I or an indigenous species very similar to it. But 

 I as no one has ever seen an American Catalpa 

 ' with leaves wedged-shaped at the base, De Can- 

 dolle could not have referred a plant with leaves 

 markedly so shaped to C. bignonioides. He refers, 

 too, the plant in question to the excellent figure 

 on page 841 of Ksempfer's Amenitales Exoticae, 

 which exactly represents the foliage, flower and 

 fruit of the small flowered plant with cordate 

 leaves now common in cultivation, and to which 

 ' being found specifically distinct, Siebold and 

 Zuccarini have properly given the name of 

 Catalpa Ki^mpferi. See their Florae Japonicae 

 familife Naturales, p. 480. The dwarf bushy 

 plant is a form of Catalpa Bungei, perhaps of 

 garden origin, the species which according to 

 Bunge (Enum. pi. chin. p. 45) becomes a large 

 tree, is probably not yet in cultivation in this 

 country, although it is included in the catalogue 

 of the Arboretum Seguzianum. For further re- 

 ferences to the bibliography of Catalpa Kfemp- 

 feri, see Tranchet and Savatier's excellent 

 enumeration of Japanese plants p. 326. 



This view of the names properly belonging to 

 these two plants is fully sustained by an exami- 

 nation in the Harvard Herbarium of several 

 original Japanese specimens of C. Ksempferi, 



