74 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 417. 



learned the art of self-preservation ; and they have not only 

 lived, but also have found time to make their flowers attrac- 

 tive by their beauty, and often fragrance. Selaginella 

 rupestris grows on damp rocks near the river. It is over 

 most of Texas and comrilon in some of its numerous 

 forms. Close by the bridge 1 found a fine Lucsena. It 

 was already in fruit, with long pods nearly grown. Low 

 species of Dalea are common on the hillsides, and Hoff- 

 mannseggias make pleasant company for them. There are 

 more and handsomer species of those genera of the Pea 

 family along this route than I have met before. Later in 

 the day a visit was made to the near-by Rio Grande. The 

 canon of that river here is deep and narrow — its walls of 

 rocks so rough and precipitous that a descent to the river 

 was impracticable. But the rains had brought nearly all 

 the vegetation into growth that is ever seen here, and rare 

 and peculiar plants invited an examination of their varied 

 attractions. Ferns were abundant on the shaded sides ot 

 the great rocks ; the species were about equally divided 

 between Cheilanthes and Pella?a. A form of small Oak 

 with sinuate spinose leaves was common in the ravines. 

 The crowning glory of the hills from Nueces River to 

 the Pecos in the early days of June is Leucophyllum 

 Texanum. It is now in full flower, and its great profusion 

 of light purple bloom literally gives to the hills their own 

 hue. 



The Pecan-tree is said to grow upon the upper waters of 

 Devil River, which is its most western Texas limit. In 

 order to keep up its popularity the Pecan has developed a 

 new and valuable variety with a very thin shell. It would 

 seem that in this variety Nature had exhausted her powers 

 in nut-making. The variety is known as Paper-shelled 

 Pecan. 



Pin Clover, Erodium cicutarum, a forage plant of some 

 renown, is rarely to be seen in Texas. Here it has to shirk 

 for itself, no attention being paid to it as a cultivated plant, 

 so it is very slow in getting a foothold. Xanthium spino- 

 sum, a Clotbur, armed with cruel spines, is liable to become 

 a great nuisance throughout the entire central portion of 

 the United States. As yet it is very rare in Texas, but if it 

 is allowed to gain a hold on farms it will have no success- 

 ful rival unless it be the Russian Thistle, Salsola ; and a 

 man or a beast of good sense would prefer to walk through 

 a field of Russian Thistles rather than through a field of 

 spiny Clotburs. 



Machasranthera tanascetifolia is not uncommon in the 

 region which we are traversing. It is now a handsome 

 low-growing Aster with Tansy-like leaves and typically 

 purple flowers. A form with white flowers is frequent. 

 One with rose-colored flowers is rarer. Along Big Creek, 

 near Hays City, Kansas, I found a station where Nature 

 herself had massed the three colors into a miniature par- 

 terre of great beauty. The species is sometimes seen under 

 cultivation in gardens, and there are few handsomer native 

 composites. 



Nothing of value has been added to botanical knowl- 

 edge or classification by subordinating the genus Macha?- 

 ranthera or the genus Diplopappus to the Aster, a genus 

 already large and unwieldy. The species of either of the 

 degraded genera are less liable to be confounded with spe- 

 cies of Aster than are species of Erigeron and of a half 

 dozen other genera which, as well as they, might suffer. A 

 plant already located, without great reason for a change, 

 should be allowed to remain in its place, though it might 

 as well have been placed elsewhere. That which in science 

 is established should not without great cause be changed, 

 and only then upon the verdict of a competent jury after a 

 fair trial of each case upon its merits. 



Several species of Wild Flax (Linum) grow in western 

 Texas, and the cultivated plant is becoming established 

 along most of the railways of the state. From its associa- 

 tions with the dawning of our civilizations we all are to 

 see the venerable old species everywhere. The cultivation 

 of Flax and the manufacture of linen from the tough fibres 

 of its bark began in prehistoric times. Linen was doubt- 



less the first plant product used, next to Fig-leaves, for 

 apparel by the human race. 



Gaillardia suavis is sometimes to be seen in western 

 Texas, though commoner farther eastward. Here it usually 

 furnishes its flowers with insignificant rays, and wears a 

 very different general habit from the rayless forms of the 

 species as seen in Kansas. 



Before leaving Del Rio, apricots, peaches, plums and 

 green corn of roasting size were on sale in that city, all 

 raised on irrigated lands. 



La Junta, Colo. 



E. N. Plank. 



Plant Notes. 

 Clematis paniculata. 



WE have already published a figure of this plant (vol. 

 iii., p. 621), as well as the reproduction of a photo- 

 graph showing a plant four years old from seed (vol. v., 

 p. 91), but no apology is needed for the accompanying 

 illustration of a plant on the grounds of Henry S. Hun- 

 newell, Esq., Wellesley, Massachusetts. This beautiful 

 climber was discovered in Japan about 120 years ago by 

 Thunberg, and it is said to have been introduced a hundred 

 years ago into European gardens. It was probably first 

 sent to this country by Thomas Hogg, and was established 

 in the Parsons' nurseries, at Flushing, thirty years ago. It 

 was so rarely seen in cultivation that it was practically 

 unknown until 1889, when mention of it was first made in 

 this journal. Why it was not more rapidly disseminated 

 can hardly be understood, except that sometimes its seed 

 fails to ripen in the autumn, and, in any event, it germi- 

 nates slowly. When planted in the spring the great pro- 

 portion of it does not come up until the second year, a 

 habit which it has in common with many other species of 

 this family. It grows rapidly, however, when once started 

 and makes strong plants, so that it remains a matter of sur- 

 prise that so little was known of it until it was discovered 

 how readily the plant can be grafted on our native Clematis 

 Virginiana, and still better on C. stans. It ought to be said 

 that the root-stock is only needed to sustain the plant in its 

 infancy, for the base of the graft should always be set 

 beneath the soil, where it will soon throw out strong thick 

 roots of its own to supersede the parent root. Time is in 

 this way saved by grafting, although, when well-ripened 

 seed is sown in autumn in a box and wintered in a cold 

 frame, the plants will appear the following spring and will 

 bloorh at two years old. 



We have already described this Clematis so often that little 

 needs to be said about it, and, indeed, it has now become 

 so common that almost every one who takes any interest in 

 garden plants is familiar with its character. It is perfectly 

 hardy, although part of it is killed back every winter, and, 

 indeed, it grows more strongly and is better furnished at 

 the base when cut back hard every spring. Shoots start- 

 ing from the ground when the roots are in deep rich soil 

 will often grow twenty feet in a single season. In this 

 respect the plant resembles Clematis flammula. It differs 

 from C. flammula, however, in having comparatively large 

 leathery leaves and in producing flowers in long axillary 

 panicles. The individual flowers are an inch or more 

 across and carried in such wild luxuriance that the foliage 

 is entirely covered during the first half of the month of Sep- 

 tember in this latitude. The flowers are followed by heads 

 of fruits which turn to a clear red, each one with a long 

 silvery tail, so that these feathery tufts seem to hover over 

 the leaves, which persist all through autumn, usually as 

 green as they are in midsummer, but sometimes changing to 

 copper-color and afterward to a dull bronze. The flowers 

 have a distinct fragrance, which is likened by some to 

 that of Hawthorn and by others to that of Hyacinth. Alto- 

 gether, this vigorous, floriferous and long-lived Asiatic 

 climber is one of the very best for porches or screens, while 

 in parks, large grounds and along roadsides it might well 

 be used, like our own Virgin's Bower, to clamber over shrub- 

 bery and drape them with its long stems covered with 

 myriads of white star-shaped flowers. 



