SOME OF THE NOVELTIES. 



JAPAN GOLDEN MAYBERKV. 



£y^ f<^HE appearance of this com- 

 paratively new introduction is 

 very prepossessing. Its habit 

 is erect and bushy with num- 

 erous slender branches and leaves. It 

 is quite prickly and attains a height of 

 about two feet. It has many adven- 

 titious root buds and is hence readily 

 multiplied by suckers or root cuttings. 

 When this is said, all is said. We have 

 propagated .and grown it for three years 

 and have not yet succeeded in coaxing 

 out of it a flower, much less a fruit. 

 Yet it is puffed by the dealers who 

 handle it as the earliest berry known — 

 preceding in ripening even the straw- 

 berry — while the cuts of the fruit which 

 they publish are beautiful and tempting. 

 I regard it as an unmitigated hum- 

 bug — and equally as great a fraud is the 



SIRAWBERRY RASPBERRY. 



This is really a dwarf Japanese rasp- 

 berry {R. sorhifolius), which grows, 

 under favorable circumstances, some 

 ten or twelve inches high. It has 

 graceful, delicate, pinnated or feathery 

 foliage and multiplies with the persist- 

 ance of a strawberry by underground 

 stolons — even to such an e.xtent as to 

 become a veritable pest or nuisance. 

 But when you come to look for fruit — 

 you fail to find it. It blooms scatter- 

 ingly through the summer, the blossom 

 much resembling in size and appearance 

 the flower of the blackberry. The 

 petals of the corolla drop ofT, leaving 

 the receptacle bare and dry ; on it, here 

 and there, is occasionally found a single 

 ted drupelet (or seed grain) which has 

 been accidently pollinated and adheres 

 — but there is nothing that could be 

 possibly magnified into a fruit. It is 



much less edible, in fact, than the berry 

 of the little yellow flowered wild straw- 

 berry — the Fragariii Itidica — of our 

 church yards. 



THE JAPAN WINF.BERRV 



is somewhat less of a fraud, but still a 

 disappointment. It is a species of rasp- 

 berrywith stout canes, bearing numerous 

 weak-red prickles and with foliage some- 

 what resembling that of the Logan berry. 

 Its peculiarity consists in the calyx or 

 hull entirely enclosing the fruit during 

 the earlier period of its development. 

 This husk, however, opens when the 

 fruit is fully matured and before it 

 ripens, exposing the berry within, which 

 is small, much resembling a Turner 

 raspberry, but harder, more crumbly 

 and of a brilliant scarlet color, with a 

 brisk, tart flavor. While the berries are 

 borne in clusters and it is tolerably pro- 

 ductive, it is not of any commercial 

 value. It presumably propagates by 

 tip-rooting, though I have sometimes 

 found suckers at a good distance from 

 the stools, indicating adventitious root- 

 buds. 



TREE CRANBERRY. 



This plant ( Viburnum opulus) is quite 

 a novelty in the South. It belongs to 

 the great honeysuckle family. It is a 

 tall, nearly, smooth shrub, with gray 

 bark and scally buds, and seems to 

 withstand our southern sun eflfectually. 

 We only planted it at the Station last 

 February, but it has borne this season 

 large clusters of fruit somewhat re- 

 sembling elder berries, but larger and 

 more oval shaped. They are now 

 (Aug. i8th) a bright red color, but still 

 hard and evidently have not yet finished 

 their growth. Whether they will form a 

 satisfactory substitute for cranberries at 



