294 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[October, 



Flowering of the Paulownia in England. — , nally from Southern Kansas, in 1873. If sown 

 If our summer heats do not permit some of the j in the fall, the plants bloom the next year, but 

 gardening enjoyments of England, it vouchsafes the best success follows when sown in the spring, 

 us others which are denied to them. It favors and the plants have a season's growth before 



the maturity of some trees for which the cool 

 summers of England are inadequate. Mr. Ed- 

 ward Meehan, the father of the writer of these 

 lines, has recently flowered the Paulownia in 

 England, and the event is made quite notewor- 

 thy by the Gardener's Chronicle. Americans 

 have enjoyed its delicious fragrance for 20 years. 

 It is a pity so sweet a thing has so ungainly a 

 habit. 



American Foliage in Europe. — Wlien in Edin- 

 burgh, a week or two ago, I noticed several trees, 

 in the Botanic Gardens there, remarkable for their 

 handsomely-colored leaves. A Pavia flava and 

 one or two others were bright orange in color, 

 relieved here and there by great splashes of ver- 

 milion and russet. The Sugar Maple [Acer sac- 

 charinum) and the Scotch Laburnum were also 

 beautifully colored, but the handsomest of all 

 were the Liquidambars, some branches of which 

 were literally crimson and gold. Such vivid col- 

 ors intermixed with deep green-leaved Oaks, 

 Conifers, and Planes, are strikingly effective, and 

 should not be overlooked by planters. — F. W. B. 

 in Garden. 



NEW PLANTS. 



Liatris pycnostachya. — We made a note of 

 this beautiful hardy flower last month; since 

 then the effect of the drouth on summer flower- 

 ing plants has been counted up, and the result 

 in favor of this is so striking that in the hope of 

 a more general introduction, we have had a 

 sketch made of one as an illustration. Through 

 the greater part of the month of August it was in 

 full blossom, as if the heat, so destructive to 

 many plants, was a matter of no consequence to 

 it. 



The plant is found wild abundantly through- 

 out the States of Kansas and Texas, and in the 

 Indian Territory, and though long known to 

 botanists, and now and then sent east by corres- 

 pondents during the past dozen years or more, 

 no attempt to introduce it to general notice has 

 been made that wc are aware of. During the 

 past summer we saw a whole row of it in the 

 garden of a florist, and the effect of so large a 

 quantity was beautiful in the extreme. The 

 plants were raised from seeds brought origi- 



flowering the next year. The roots are some- 

 what bulbous, and when once had will bloom 



im 



l^ 





liatris pycnostachya. 



well for several years. There are some twenty 

 species of North American Liatris, but this is per- 

 haps, the handsomest of the whole. The flowers 

 are rosy purple ; spike about one foot long, aa 

 shown in the engraving. They commence to 

 flower at the top of the spike, and the blooming, 

 progresses downwards. In the illustration the 

 lower blossoms have yet to open. 



