For June. 1923 



157 



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Foreign Exchange Department 



SILENE HOOKER!.— Although introduced from California 

 nearly half a century ago. this truly marvelous little plant, with 

 its two-inch wide blossoms of clearest rose pink, rayed white, is 

 still a rare plant in our rock-gardens. Silene Hookeri is readily 

 raised from seed, and the young plants proceed at once to make a 

 long thong of a taproot, crowned with a tuft of longish. narrow 

 leaves of soft texture and grey with down. These leaves flop 

 about loosely on the ground, and are safest on a layer of shingle 

 to keep them clean and able to fulfil their natural functions. If 

 raised in gentle heat early in the year, the yi.iung plants begin to 

 flower in their lirst Summer. They send up from between the 

 leaves about two-inch long stems, which flop abuut in various 

 directions, each one crowned with one enormous, deeply-fringed 



Silciw Hookeri (Courtesy 0/ Ljardcniiiii llliislralcd ) 



flower. This display continues for many weeks in well-established 

 specimens, and good seed is produced fairly freely. In the Wintor 

 the plant dies down, out of harm's way, and provided the drainage 

 is really perfect it appears stronger than ever next Spring. Tne 

 plant is so beautiful that a little trouble is well repaid, and people 

 who object to a little extra fuss must give up all thoughts of suc- 

 ceeding permanently with this plant in the open garden. There is. 

 of course, not the slightest ditficulty in growing it in pots or pans 

 in sandy loam and leaf-mould for the Alpnie house. In tl.L 

 open choose a place at the foot of a south-facing cliff or boulder — 

 if on a sharpish slope so much the better. Dig out the soil for 

 fullv eighteen inches, give six inches of brickbats and broken 



7/;r rciiiarkabli: licrbaicous plant Pachysandrd ProcH)}ibciis 

 (Courti-sy of the Gordcn) 



crocks for drainage, and fill in with a sharp screen mixture: four 

 parts of limestone or granite chips to one part of leaf-mould and 

 loam mixed, and plant as close up to the cliff or boulder as you 

 can, and if your garden is in a district with a fairly pure atmos- 

 phere Silene Hiookeri will probably settle down with you con- 

 tentedly, and give you an increasing number of flowers from year 

 to year. — Gardening Illustrated. 



PACHVSANDRA PROCUMBENS.— This is quite an inter- 

 esting herbaceous plant, which has the additional merits of being 

 beautiful and uncommon. Its attractiveness lies chiefly in the 

 thickened stamens from which it derives its generic nariie. The 



sweet-scented flowers are moncecious on the same spike ; the stam- 

 inate flowers, which are in the majority, being above, while the 

 few pistillate blossoms are below. All are without petals, the 

 staminate flowers consisting of four greenish purple sepals, four 

 stamens, which are apposite the sepals, and long thick filaments 

 from one-third to half an inch long, which are exserted ; while 

 the few pistillate flowers, the sepals of which are variable, have a 

 three-celled pistd, with two ovules in each cell and three com- 

 paratively large fleshy styles, which are spreading. The plant is 

 ■ if spreading habit, with stout, unbranched stems about nine inches 

 in length, bearing at the top a cluster of dark bronzy evergreen 

 leaves from two inches to four inches long, ovate or obovate, 

 obtuse or acute at the apex, the upper part coarsely dentate, the 

 lower part entire, narrownig at the base into a petiole, either equal 

 to or shorter than the blade. The foliage gives the appearance of 

 a ring surrounding the dense cylindrical spikes of flowers, which 

 rise from the axils of the scales from the lower part of the 

 liranches. The culture of the plant is quite simple ; it grows in 

 ordinary soil and is a suitable plant for woodland or a semi-shady 

 position. It can lie propagated frcm cuttings, but the most con- 

 \ enient method is hv division. It is a na'.ive of the South-EasLcni 

 United States and known as the .Allegheny Mountain Spurge, but 

 it is also found in Carolina and Kentucky. Other species of this 

 interesting genus suitable for similar positions are P. axillaris, a 

 Chinese species, and P. terminalis frcm Japan, as well as a varie- 

 gated-leaved variety of the latter, sometimes grown in greenhouses 

 as a foliage plant, although it appears to be perfectly hardy. — The 

 Garden. 



FENDLERA RUPICOLA.— Fendlera Rupicola is a beautiful 

 deciduous shrub that deserves to be better known, for few plants 

 are more effective, and at the same time more easily grown if 



Fendlera kupienUi [Courlesy of dirdeners' Chrouiele. Prilish) 



given a sunny, warm position. This interesting member of Saxi- 

 fragaceae is closely allied to Philadelphus, but differs from that 

 genus by reason of its eight stamens and superior ovary. The 

 beautiful white or faintly rose-tinged flowers, which individually 

 somewhat resemble a Maltese cross, are from one to one and a 

 half inches across and usually borne solitarily, but sometimes in 

 threes on short twigs on the previous year's growth ; the petals 

 are rhombic-ovate and contracted at the base into a disthict claw, 

 while the cluster of bright yellow stamens stands up erect on 

 petaloid filaments and adds to the beauty of the flower. The 

 almost sessile leaves are rigidly coriaceous, lanceolate on the sterile 

 branches, about one inch long and one-half inch wide, prominently 

 three-nerved, revolutc at the margin, with short, stiff' bristles above 

 the greyish tomentum beneath, while the leaves on the flowering 

 shoots are much smaller, being, linear and clustered on short twigs. 

 This sturdy, rigidly-branched, deciduous shrub is a native of the 

 South-Western United States, and is found growing on the sun- 

 burnt slopes in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It is 

 considered to be one of the most beautiful plants of its own region, 

 where its profusion of white, or rose-colored flowers is said to give 

 it tiie appearance of a small Peach tree. The illustration shows 

 a spray from a fine specimen eight feet high, erowing against the 

 Cactus House in the Botanic Garden, Cambridge. It is not par- 

 ticular as to soil and is readily raised from seed, or from cuttings 

 of rather soft wood placed in gentle heat. — Gardeners' Chronicle 

 (British). 



