222 



THE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[July, 



The Pitury Plant. — The Peruvians chew 

 the leaves of the Coca (Erythroxylon Coca), and 

 can live without food for days. The natives of 

 Central Australia have a plant they call " Pi- 

 tury " which has similar properties. Baron Yon 

 Mueller finds it to be obtained from the Duboisia 

 Hopwoodiana. 



The Southern States or North America. 

 The Gardener's Chronicle frequently refers to 

 " The Southern States of North America. This 

 may mean any part of the North American 

 continent south of the St. Lawrence or the great 

 lakes. In the geography of plants accuracy is 

 of great impoi'tance, and our esteemed contem- 

 porary should say the "southern portions of the 

 United States " when it means that a plant is 

 growing in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, or contigu- 

 ous territory. 



Maine State Pomological Society.— 

 Fourth Annual Report, from Geo. B. Sawyer, 

 Wiscasset. In our last year's notice we referred 

 to an interesting feature, the publication of plans 

 of existing small gardens. This is continued 

 here ; a plan of the house and grounds of the 

 late Dr. J. C. Weston, of Bangor, being given. 



Flowers and Ferns of the United 

 States. — The editor of the Gardener's 

 Monthly would be very thankful to any friends 

 who may chance to have seeds of any native 

 flowers that may possibly interest him, in order 

 to grow for artistic subjects for " Flowers and 

 Ferns." Only a few seeds or a root or two are 

 necessary. All the drawings for this work are 

 made from nature ; so where specimens direct 

 from wild locations are not at hand, the only 

 chance to take them is to have the plants grow- 

 ing. 



A Popular California Flora. — By Yol- 

 ney Rattan, San Francisco, published by A. L. 

 Bancroft & Co. The flowers of California have 

 been described in so many different and generally 

 inaccessible works, that it is no little trouble for 

 any one to learn the histories of the plants he 

 finds. In this only the polypetalous and gamo- 

 petalous exogens are described, and of these 

 the umbelliferse and compositee are omitted. 

 Still it is the only cheap work accei«sible to 

 students of the California flora, and is therefore 

 valuable so far as it goes. 



Dickens' Dictionary of London, — Pub- 

 lished by McMillan & Co., from Claxton, 

 Remseu & Haftelfinger, Philadelphia. The 



hundreds of Americans who go to Eui-ope every 

 year use much time in hunting about for the 

 best things to see. They buy " guide books," 

 but half the things thought to be important by 

 the guide maker are of no consequence to the 

 average man or woaian. In the writer's own 

 case he cuts loose from the guide books, and 

 thus generally finds himself in interesting places 

 where no one else has been. For instance every 

 guide book tells " every visitor to see Covent 

 Garden Market," but no word is ever said of 

 Clare Market, not fifteen minutes walk away. 

 The writer of this stumbled on it early one Sun- 

 day morning in his recent London experience,, 

 and, as the market of the very poor, it is well 

 worthy of a special visit to London to see. Yet 

 a distinguished London gentleman to whom we 

 related our adventure had never heard of the 

 place. If we had access to this " Dictionary " 

 it would not have been by chance that we had this 

 extremely interesting experience. This book 

 is valuable in this, that it gives full accounts of 

 everything — nearly every thing — that can pos- 

 sibly interest the stranger, and he can thus be 

 his own guide in selecting where to go and what 

 to see. Even those who never expect to see 

 London will derive much satisfaction from read- 

 ing about the many things others may see there. 



Moore's Rural Life.— Mr. D. D. T. Moore, 

 well known as the very successful originator 

 and for many years the editor of Moore's Rural 

 New Yorker, is now at the head of a new ven- 

 ture, with the title above. It is of a very high 

 class in its aims, and yet at the popular price of 

 fifteen cents per month. In looking through the 

 first number we were glad to note a tribute to 

 Mr.F.J. Scott's "Suburban Home Grounds." We 

 have regarded this as one of the finest works on 

 landscape gardening ever issued in any country, 

 and are surprised that Messrs. Appleton should 

 suft'er it to be comparatively dead on their 

 shelves. A portrait and sketch of the home of 

 Bryant will be welcome to the lovers of this 

 beautiful poet, and from which we extract the 

 following, which will have a special interest for 

 our readers : 



" Mr. Bryant took more interest in arboiicul- 

 ture and gardening than in farming ; hence the 

 place contains a large collection of rare and 

 beautiful trees, both deciduous and evergreen, 

 such as are not generally seen on more elabo- 

 rately laid-out places. He considered that a 

 country place was made for enjoyment and not 

 for show, hence Cedar-Mere was but little 



