1885.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



I6s 



mark ye. It was obtained from seed of a tree 

 growing on historical ground — Alamo, Texas — 

 endeared to every American heart, but more so to 

 South Carolinians, for there our brave heroes met 

 death as only heroes can, and there their deeds are 

 recorded. "Thermopylae had her messengers of 

 defeat, Alamo had none." Spartansburg, S. C. 



THE MARBLED ROSE. 



BY MRS. M.D. WELLCOME. 



It was only a day or two before receiving the 

 Gardeners' Monthly that I was thinking of this 

 rose, so familiar to me in my childhood, but which 

 I have not seen for forty or more years. I was 

 therefore specially interested in reading Mrs. Thom- 

 son's article respecting it, under its true name ; for 

 I have no doubt that the York and Lancaster rose 

 is identical with the one I only knew as the Mar- 

 bled Rose. I have often queried why it never 

 appears in the Rose catalogues, and whether it was 

 lost to the world. The neighbor who had the red 

 and white rose, had another she called the Damask 

 rose, and one she called the Hundred-leaf rose. 

 This was really the finest of all. It was a solid 

 rose and worthy of its name. I never have seen 

 a rose so solid full of leaves ; its color, if I remem- 

 ber right, was a delicate carmine, shading to a 

 very light blush, and so deliciously sweet. My 

 home when a child was in a lone farmhouse, and 

 there were no rose bushes, no flowering shrubs, 

 nothing but a little girl's garden of the most simple 

 flowers grown and a bush of Southernwood I Well 

 do I remember how fond our dear mother was of 

 that fragrant plant. You may be sure that I 

 always visited my good neighbor who lived half a 

 mile away, and had the roses, when I knew they 

 were in bloom. She had lilacs too, and tall holly- 

 hocks with their great single blooms. How 

 memory runs back to those far away years I I am 

 a child again ! I see those flowers just as I saw 

 them then, and remember the color of the holly- 

 hocks — pink, yellow and maroon. Well, if I did 

 not have the cultured flowers, I had the wild ones 

 rfll around me in grand profusion. 



Ere the snow had fully melted, I went in quest 

 of the May flowers — April flowers they were more 

 truly ; and by their true name. Trailing .Arbutus, 

 I never knew them till long years after. They 

 grew in the greatest profusion on the farm, and I 

 knew well where the largest and pinkest could be 

 found. What basketfuls I gathered, and their 

 perfume filled the house. Just about one year 

 ago, a lady who lives very near my childhood 



home, though an entire stranger to me, gathered 

 some of the blossoms from the old home, and sent 

 them to me. It was so kind and thoughtful of her. 

 There were Anemones and Hepaticas and Aqui- 

 legias in profusion, beautiful wild orchids, the 

 lowly violets, and in the woods 1 found the white 

 and, far more rare, the yellow violet. There were 

 great scarlet lilies in the field among the tall 

 waving grass, and in late autumn, the fringed 

 Gentian grew abundantly on a hill-side. It was 

 to me a lovely flower, but I never learned its 

 name till many years after I had gone far away. 



But whither am I drifting ? I took my pen to 

 write a single paragraph about the red and white 

 rose, and it has led me rambling again over the 

 knolls and hills in search of the flowers of my 

 childhood ; surely I am in my dotage ! 



Yarmouth, Maine. 



FLOWER NOTES FROM NEW ORLEANS. 



BY M. H. LESTER. 



Burchellia capensis is now in bloom, and I like 

 it. Sparmannia Africana makes too much foliage 

 for the amount of flower to be useful as a flower- 

 ing plant. 



Eriostemon scaber and others are good. I have 

 got as good a plant as any one has, of Mackoya 

 bella — in a 7-inch pot — but I have never seen a 

 flower on it yet. I shall be more than grateful if 

 some of your correspondents will tell me what I 

 shall do to make it bloom. Brownea coccinea has 

 not bloomed here yet, but it's very interesting to 

 watch the new foliage in the course of develop- 

 ment. 



What I got for Anthurium feriensis is now in 

 bloom, but the flower does not seem to correspond 

 with the plate in the catalogues. However, I will 

 wait for another flower before I condemn it. 



The pleasantest forenoon I spent in a long time 

 was a day or so ago with our mutual friend in hor- 

 ticulture, W. H. Chadwick, Esq., the celebrated 

 orchid amateur of Chicago. I was glad to find 

 Mr. Chadwick not of a class of visitors that want 

 to get away before hardly there. They see all in 

 five minutes. To another class everything looks 

 like a Calla Lily or a " Wax Begonia ;" and, "have 

 you got any Smilax ?" is about about all the in- 

 quiry they have to make. Mr. C, like a good 

 soldier, will dispute every inch of ground in the 

 houses and outside, and if there be anything he 

 does not know he is not ashamed to inquire; but 

 when he gets in an orchid house he is a perfect 

 revelation. It is too bad we see so few like him. 



