January 6, 1912.] 



THE GARDENERS 1 CHRONICLE 



1 







I 







entered on the roll at £1, the Parish Council 

 claiming that the amount should be £600. No 

 charges are made for admission to the park, but 

 those playing golf are charged certain sums. 

 The expenses exceed the revenue, but, as the 

 rent for the current year is £532, the accessor on 

 account of tenant's improvements made the 

 valuation £600. This was reduced by the 

 Valuation Committee to the nominal sum of £1. 

 Correspondent. 



TREES AND SHRUBS. 



ELLIOTTIA KACEMOSA. 



Elliottia belongs to the Natural Order, 

 Erieace(e, botanists placing it between the two 

 genera Leiophyllum and Ledum. It is a mono- 

 typic genus, although Tripetaleia paniculata, 

 Sieb. and Zucc. and T. bracteata, Maxim, tw 

 other Ericaceous shrubs, natives of Japan, were 

 included by Bentham and Hooker in the genus 

 Elliottia. More recently, however, Drude has 

 revived the original generic name of Tripetaleia, 

 leaving the subject of this note the solitary 

 representative of the genus. Elliottia is named 

 in compliment to the American botanist Stephen 

 Elliot, who died in the year 1830. He discovered 

 the plant growing at Waynesboro on the Savan- 

 nah river. Since that time specimens have been 

 found growing in two other places on the banks 

 of the same river, at Hamburg, South Carolina, 

 and near Augusta, Georgia, by Mr. P. J. Berk- 

 mans, who sent the specimen to Kew, from which 

 the flowering shoot illustrated in fig. 10 was 

 photographed. Collectors in the same localities 

 of more recent date have failed to discover this 

 Elliottia, and if the plant exists wild at the 

 present time it must be extremely rare. In 

 1894 Mr. Berkmans first sent living plants to 

 Kew, but these failed to become established. 

 Eight years later the same gentleman sent two 

 more specimens, one of which flowered in July 

 last, so that it has taken nine years to reach 

 the flowering stage. Elliottia racemosa Muehl. 

 is stated to grow wild in wet, sandy woods. 

 At Kew the two plants are growing in sandy 

 loam and peat, in company with the Mediter- 

 ranean Heath sheltered (but not shaded) on all 

 sides with tall trees. 



Ten feet is given as the height of Elliottia 

 racemosa in a wild state ; the larger of the two 

 Kew plants exceeds 6 feet in height, but no 

 doubt in time this will be considerably exceeded 

 as the plant added 11 inches to its stature 



last 



year. It is a deciduous bush distinctly 

 pyramidal in growth with a main central stem, 

 from which arise tiers or whorls of small 

 branches. These in turn produce their branches 

 from one point, so that, generally speaking, the 

 growths all over the plant are in whorls, al- 

 though without looking at the bush closely, 

 especially near the base, this character is not 

 readily discernible. One of these tiers of 

 growths is added to the height of the plant each 



\ear 



With 



racemes of flowers, some 20 in number, were pro- 

 duced by the tier of growths made near the 

 summit last year. 



A racemose panicle rather than raceme more 

 correctly describes the arrangement of the 

 flowers, which are borne on slender pedicels two- 

 thirds of an inch or rather more in length, 

 generally singly, sometimes in pairs, and occa- 

 sionally three together. The racemes are ter- 

 minal, erect, and vary in length from 5 to 9 

 inches and 2£ to 3 inches in diameter. The 



being not unlike those of several species of 

 Irbutus. The fruits are not known either from 

 wild specimens or cultivated plants. 



Various means of propagation, including cut- 

 tings of hard and soft wood, root cuttings and 

 root grafting, have been tried, but so far without 

 success. The upright habit of the plant makes 

 layering difficult, but not impossible, and this 

 will be tried. It is said that the Elliottias pro- 

 duce suckers in a wild state, but none has de- 

 veloped on the Kew specimens, although the roots 

 of one of the plants were tut about for propagat- 

 ing purposes so much as to seriously imperil 





[Photograph by C. P. Rajfill. 



Fig. io. — elliottia rac 



SA : FLOWERS 

 WHITE WITH RED ANTHERS. 



the 

 was 



existence 

 made to 



- 



of the plant, 

 obtain 



Everv 

 the 



effort 

 flow T ers 



seeds, 

 being artificially pollinated. Some 

 anthers were removed and plaeed en the 



of the 



largest raceme produced in all 104 flowers, but stigmas, in others the buds were opened and 



not more than about 20 of this number were 'open 

 at any one time. The development of the buds 

 is smgular At first erect, during the process of 

 growth, they become inverted, changing again 

 when opening to a horizontal position. The 

 flowers are pure white, about an inch across, and 



fragrant. 



i 



K 



k j • , The leaves are 4 inches lon S> 2 inches 

 broad in the centre, and tapering to both ends, 



poll 



the stigmas of some of the flowers after the 

 petals had fallen, and the flowers on one raceme 

 were pollinated from those of another raceme. 

 This was done in the early morning, under the 

 scorching rays of the mid-day sun, and also late 

 in the afternoon, but all to no purpose. 'A. 

 Osborne, December, 1911. 



THE LIFE OF SIR JOSEPH HOOKER. 



(Continued from page 469, vol. I.) 



Syria, Palestine and Sinai. 



In the autumn of 1860, Hooker accompanied 

 Captain Washington, ilydrographer of the Navy, 

 to Syria, in order, among other things, to investi- 

 gate the Cedars on .Mount Lebanon. The 

 Rev. G. Washington and Mr. Daniel Hanbury 

 were also of the party. Hooker made this jour- 

 ney the subject of a series of three lecture.-, 

 delivered, in the first instance, before the 

 staff of Kew, and repeated in London. It 

 also gave rise to a paper " On the Cedars of 

 Lebanon, Taurus, Algeria, and India/ 9 The 

 Natural History Review, vol. ii., 1862, pp. 11 18, 

 plates, 1-3, illustrating Cednis Libani, C. atlan- 

 tira, and C. deodara. Hooker regarded them as 

 races of one species, but he was puzzled by the 

 fact that C. atlantica and C. deodara were much 

 nearer to each other in botanical characters than 

 to the geographically intermediate C. Libani. 

 Very definite particulars of the Lebanon Cedars 

 were obtained. Approximately, there were in 

 the grove visited 400 trees, ranging, it was esti- 

 mated, between 22 and 800 years of age. hut they 

 had no means of verifying'the ages. The total 

 absence of seedlings and young trees was remark- 

 able, pointing to the early extinction of the 

 Lebanon Cedar. Very much larger groves were 

 discovered by later explorers of Lebanon. 



Sir Joseph contributed the article on the 

 " Botany of Syria and Palestine " to Smith's 

 Dictionary of the Bible, ii., 1863. This is an in- 

 teresting and popular sketch of the vegetation, 

 both from a scenic and economic standpoint, 

 though no special concordance with biblical 

 names is given. 



"Plants of the Peninsula of Sinai/' by J. D. 

 Hooker, in E. H. Palmer's Desert of the fcxodus. 

 1871. A rough list of the plants, without com- 

 ment or explanation. 



North and South America. 



In 1877 Hooker visited the United States, 

 where he met with a hearty welcome, and, accom- 

 panied by his old friend, Dr. Asa Gray, made a 

 considerable tour of the country, including Cali- 

 fornia and the Rocky Mountains. There is a 

 manuscript diary of this journey in the Kew 

 library, and the following papers contain some 

 of the botanical results, which also included a 



herbarium of about a thousand species, presented 

 to Kew. 



" Notes on the Botany of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains," Nature, vol. xvi. (1877), pp. 539-540. 

 This volume of Nature is dedicated to Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, and his portrait is supplemented by a 

 highly-eulogistic appreciation of his life and 

 work from the pen of Asa Gray, the leading 

 American botanist of his day. 



" The Distribution of the North American 

 Flora," Proceedings of the Royal Institute, vol. 

 viii. (1879), pp. 568-580. A lecture delivered 

 before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 

 April 12, 1878, discusses more especially the close 

 relationships of the floras of Eastern North 

 America and Japan. 



Hooker was also a contributor to Salvin and 

 Godman's Biologia Central i Americana-Botany, 

 vol. i., "Introduction," 1888, pp. lxii.-lxvii'i., 

 "A Commentary" on Mr. Hemsley's "Intro- 

 duction and Appendix," by Sir J. D. Hooker. 

 This may be termed a benevolent criticism of 

 some of Hemsley's views, and a brief exposition 

 of the author's conception of a phytogeographical 

 division of the world into seven primary regions. 

 Concerning South America, there is not much 

 to record. Specially deserving of mention, how- 

 ever, is the detailed and fully-illustrated morpho- 

 logical and anatomical description of the aberrant 

 genus Myzodendron, in the Flora Antarctica, 

 vol. ii., pp. 289-302, plates 102-107 ter. This 

 genus has been alternately referred to the Loran- 

 thaceae and the Santalaceae, and erected into a 

 separate family, the Myzodendraceae. There is a 

 translation by J. E. Planchon and complete re- 

 production in Annates des Sciences NaturelL zs, 

 3rd serie, tome v., pp. 193-225, planches 5-9. 



Hooker's only contribution to Martius's great 

 Flora Brasilensis w r as the Rosacese. 



Among scattered papers, the following is of 

 special interest: — 



11 On Hydrothrix, A New Genus of Ponte- 

 deriacese," Annals of Botany, vol. i. (1887), pp. 

 89^4, plate 7. A remarkable, though inconspicu- 

 ous, amphibious plant, collected by Gardner, in 



