2^6 Xotes a)id Gleanings. 



Marshall P. Wilder exhibited recently, at the rooms of the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society, the foliage and tlower of a very rare ornamental flowering- 

 tree named Agnosias sinuatus. or Stcuocarpus Ciinninghaini, a native of More- 

 ton Bay, New Holland. It is a greenhouse shrub of the largest class ; the present 

 subject being eighteen feet in height. Its leaves are from sixteen to twenty inches 

 in length, of a bright, shining green, deeply cut or sinuated, somewhat like the 

 foliage of the oak. The flowers are very curious in their formation. They 

 spring from the old wood, and are borne on stems with four or five large whorls 

 of rosy scarlet, after the manner of the Proteas ; to which family it undoubtedly 

 belongs. 



Stexocarpls Cunxixghaml — •• So long ago as 1S2S, the lamented Allan 

 Cunningham discovered this plant on the banks of the Brisbane River, Moreton 

 Bay, which he described as a slender tree of most remarkable habit, without 

 flower or fruit."' Of this. Sir \V. Hooker remarks, •• Had Mr. Cunningham 

 seen its blossoms elegantly arranged in candelabrum-like umbels, clothed with 

 the most vivid orange-scarlet silky pubescence, he would assuredly have ranked 

 it among the most important of his numerous additions to the Australian flora. 

 . . . The handsome evergreen foliage has indeed long recommended this plant 

 to the attention of cultivators \ and. now that its beautit'ul inflorescence is known, 

 the demand for it will be in proportion to its loveliness." — Paxtoti Mag. 

 Botany. 



Fruit-Harvest of the West. — •• The American Journal of Horticulture "' 

 for November contains an article on the " Fruit-Harvest of the West for iS68.-' 



This article conveys the impression of a universal failure of the fruit-harvest 

 throughout the West In this it does injustice to some favored and protected 

 localities which have had abundant harvests. The statement that the truit-crop 

 of the West was a failure for the year 1868, is, without doubt, generally correct ; 

 but. happily for our credit, this statement is not of universal application. 



Your contributor, writing tVona Illinois, gives a correct summary for his State. 

 Permit me to give a few items from the fruit-region of St. Joseph, Mich. The 

 custom-house record shows that there were shipped from the port of St. Joseph, 

 during the summer and autumn of 1S6S, five hundred and eight thousand and 

 five hundred packages of peaches, containing one-third of a bushel each ; thirty- 

 four thousand bushels of berries ; besides large quantities of apples, pears, grape.s, 

 &c. The abo%-e estimate does not include hundreds of bushels of small fruits 

 and peaches used in home-consumption, or that were canned, dried, and pre- 

 served in various ways for the market. This large amount of fruit was mostly 

 grown on the Lake Shore, or immediately about the mouth of the St. Joseph 

 River, within the area of but a few square miles at most The resources of the 

 country are being rapidly developed, and orchards and snneyards will soon corer 

 the entire face of this truit-region ; and in some future year, as in the last, we 

 hope to supply the markets of Chicago and the neighboring cities at least with 

 cheap and luscious fruit when the fruit-crop of the West is again a failure. 



7. H. L. 

 St. Joseph, Mich.. Jan. 12, 1869. 



