1 86 Notes and Gleanings. 



SPiRiEA Palmata. — We are indebted to Mr. Fortune for the following ac- 

 count, read at the last Tuesday meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, of the 

 beautiful and hardy SpircBa pabnata, which was described by Thunberg in his 

 " Flora Japonica " nearly a hundred years ago (1784) : There is a plant of this 

 name in our gardens ; but it is very inferior to that exhibited by Mr. Noble, and 

 which is, no doubt, the true S. palmata of Thunberg. The plant is found cul- 

 tivated in almost every garden in the more northern parts of the Japanese em- 

 pire, and is a most beautiful object when in full bloom. Dr. Hooker, who has 

 figured it in "The Botanical Magazine," describes it as "by far the handsomest 

 of the species of the genus hitherto imported, and certainly one of the most 

 beautiful hardy plants in cultivation. The deep purple-red of the stems and 

 branches, passing into the crimson-purple of the glorious broad corymbs of 

 flowers, contrasts most exquisitely with the foliage, which in autumn assumes 

 beautiful tints of brown and golden-yellow.'' Like all the Japanese plants culti- 

 vated in or indigenous to the more northerly parts of the empire, S. pal)nata is 

 perfectly hardy in England, and will form a valuable addition to our list of 

 hardy herbaceous plants. The East has already favored us with some herba- 

 ceous plants of great beauty, such, for example, as Aneniotie japonica and Diely- 

 tra spectabilisj and the Spircea now exliibited will prove a fitting companion to 

 these beautiful and useful species. — Gardener^ s Chronicle 



Influence of Stock upon Scion. — Seeing in your valuable paper a dis- 

 cussion going on in reference to the influence of scion upon stock, and stock 

 upon scion, I venture to give you a description of a Marie Louise Pear I have 

 growing in my grounds. The tree I refer to has been grafted two years last 

 March. The first season, the tree assumed the form of a weeping-ash ; and the 

 two main shoots attained the length of two feet and a half, the three minor shoots 

 about two feet. Last season, the shoots did not lengthen more than six to nine 

 inches, the two-years' wood becoming covered with fruit-buds. The shoots were 

 shortened in the pruning season, — No. i to about twenty inches, eleven pears ; 

 2, to fifteen inches, twenty pears ; 3, to eighteen inches, nineteen pears ; 4, to 

 twelve inches, nine pears ; 5, to fifteen inches, twenty pears ; number of fruits, 

 seventy-nine. The above are all set and healthy in appearance ; which, for a 

 two-years' graft of Marie Louise, is, to say the least, unusual, as I have not met 

 with a similar instance during thirty years' experience. The stock is a seedling 

 pear, or what is usually termed a free stock, worked standard-high : others grafted 

 from the same tree are different in appearance, and have grown freely; but there 

 is no fruit on them, as a rule. The Marie Louise sets badly with me on trees 

 five times the age ; and I have no hesitation in saying that a Marie Louise tree 

 which has been planted these ten years has not set seventy-nine pears during the 

 time. The conclusion I come to is, that the stock on which the graft is worked 

 has an action similar to that of the Paradise stock in apples, — John Watson, 

 St. Aldan's, in Gardener's Chronicle. 



