126 



GardenTand Forest. 



[Number 422. 



Hybrid Rocheas. — Rochea jasminea and R. coccinea are 

 two well-known greenhouse plants, the former, with short 

 crowded stems bearing small heads of erect, tubular, white 

 jasmine-like flowers; the latter, often'called Kalosanthes, 

 with taller thicker stems and larger clusters of bright red 

 flowers. These two were crossed a few years ago by a 

 Belgian horticulturist, and the progeny were distributed by 

 Monsieur Pynaert, of Ghent. They are now popular with 

 some of the growers for market near London, large num- 

 bers of them being grown in the convenient "forty-eight" 

 pot, and sold for about a shilling each when in flower. 

 They form dense tufts of stems about nine inches high, 

 each bearing an erect umbel of white, carmine, rose and 

 bright red flowers. They bloom in early summer. No 

 plants are more easily grown, a light frame or greenhouse, 

 such as suits a Pelargonium, an open soil, plenty of water 

 during the growing season and frequent stopping of the 

 stems in the early stages being the chief of their require- 

 ments. 



Tecoma Smithii is still flowering freely here, so that 

 plants have been in flower now for the past four months. 

 They are single-stemmed plants, two feet high, clothed 

 from base to top with healthy pinnate leaves and bearing 

 at the apex a beautiful cluster of from twenty to fifty flow- 

 ers, which are rich yellow, faintly tinged with red on the 

 outside of the corolla. This is a greenhouse plant for the 

 million. It can be grown as easily as Chrysanthemums, 

 and it never fails to flower if the following directions are 

 observed : (1) Cuttings to be struck in early spring in heat ; 

 (2) the plants must be limited to a single stem, all laterals 

 to be removed as soon as they start ; (3) when the buds 

 show at the apex lateral shoots will push near the top, 

 which must be removed, or they will prevent the buds from 

 developing; (4) the plants should be kept in a cool airy 

 house or frame from October till the flowers are over. 



Daphne Indica. — This is one of the choicest of green- 

 house plants when it is successfully cultivated, but it has 

 fallen into neglect because of its mif'finess. I believe this 

 is due entirely to the fact that the plants supplied by nur- 

 serymen hitherto were grafted and not grown on their own 

 roots, Daphne Mezereum or D. Pontica being used as stocks. 

 Messrs. Low & Co. have, however, discovered that cuttings 

 of D. Indica will strike root readily if planted in small pots 

 in a hot frame in early spring, and that plants thus rooted 

 grow freely and flower profusely. A few plants of this 

 Daphne placed about in conservatories when in flower give 

 off a most pleasing odor. I have seen good specimens 

 grown by setting the plants in a rich border in a sunny 

 position in a conservatory. Several plants have survived 

 the past three winters against a warm south wall out-of- 

 doors at Kew. The species is a native of Japan. 



Primula imperialis, the Royal Primrose from the high 

 mountains of Java, continues to thrive here in a cool house 

 or frame. It is apparently a biennial, seedlings flowering 

 when two years old and then perishing. Plants have been 

 tried in various sheltered positions out-of-doors at Kew, 

 but they have always succumbed to the first severe frost. 

 In Cornwall, however, it can be grown out-of-doors per- 

 manently, for plants have lived in a garden at St. Austell 

 for two winters, and the winter of 1894-5 was a record one. 

 I believe this plant would sport freely and produce variety 

 in color and size in places where the conditions were excep- 

 tionally favorable to its growth. It has, no doubt, consid- 

 erable capabilities if placed in the hands of a clever breeder 

 favorably situated. A Primula with a rosette of leaves 

 nearly two feet across and erect spikes three feet or more 

 high, bearing whorls of deep yellow flowers like those of 

 P. Japonica, is essentially a plant to be looked after. 



Persian Cyclamen. — Growers of this plant in England 

 have lately proved that although German growers are suc- 

 cessful, English are even more so. Exhibits from some of 

 our leading metropolitan cultivators of the Cyclamen were 

 lately pitted against plants from the best of the German 

 growers, and the English plants were better, both as to 

 quality of strain and cultural excellence. I have lately 



seen establishments where from ten to twenty thousand 

 plants of this Cyclamen are raised annually. The seeds 

 are sown in September and the seedlings are treated as 

 stove plants till about the following June. By the end of 

 the year they are bouquets a foot through of healthy leaves 

 and from twenty to fifty expanded flowers. Two-year-old 

 plants have been grown near Kew which measured twenty- 

 six inches in diameter and bore a hundred and fifty 

 expanded flowers ; all this, too, in an eight-inch pot. Great 

 improvement in the size and color of the flowers has been 

 made in the last few years ; a rich blood-crimson break 

 being very much favored now. 



Senecio Bourg^i. — This is a handsome winter-flowering 

 greenhouse plant, a near ally of Senecio cruenta, the parent 

 of the garden Cineraria, and a native of the same country 

 — that is, the Canary Islands. Plants of it have been in 

 flower for the past month at Kew ; they are about a yard 

 high, the leaves are pale green, the under surface clothed 

 with soft white wool, and the petioles bear ear-like lobes, 

 as if the leaf had attempted to be pinnatifid. The flowers 

 are larger than those of S. cruenta and of a rich purple 

 color. It is probably an annual. Breeders of Cinerarias 

 may find it useful. A figure of it was published in The 

 Botanical Magazine in 1853 (t. 4994) under the name of 

 Doronicum, and it is there spoken very highly of as an 

 ornamental greenhouse plant. We are indebted to the 

 Cambridge Botanic Gardens for its introduction. 



London. W. Walso?l. 



Plant Notes. 



Cercidiphyllum Japonicum. — We have lately received a 

 photograph of one of these trees growing on the grounds 

 of a correspondent on the banks of the Hudson, which 

 represents a specimen some twenty-five feet high and of 

 perfectly conical shape. The tree at this stage of its 

 growth is certainly beautiful, and as it seems to be per- 

 fectly hardy and not subject, so far as observed in this 

 country, to any serious disease, there is no reason why it 

 should not take high rank among our ornamental trees. In 

 Japan it becomes a large tree, and in moist, deep, rich soil 

 it often attains a height of a hundred feet. Sometimes it 

 grows with a single stem three or more feet in diameter 

 and rising fifty feet without branches, but usually a cluster 

 of stems unite together at the base into a stout trunk and 

 then diverge gradually. The photograph of a tree of this 

 kind, with a trunk circumference of twenty-one and a 

 half feet, was reproduced in vol. vi. of this journal, page 53. 

 When young the tree is fastigiate, the branches hugging the 

 trunk closely, with the apparent purpose of protecting it 

 against the rays of the sun, which seem to injure it at early 

 stages of its growth. At this early season the slender 

 branches of the trees hereabout are plump with sap, the 

 red-brown bark is bright, and the leaf-buds, apparently, are 

 already beginning to swell. In fact, the Cercidiphyllum is 

 among the first trees to show its leaves in spring. These 

 are at first a bronzy red, with bright red stalks and narrow 

 red stipules, and they present a striking appearance at this 

 season. Neither the flowers nor fruit are conspicuous, but 

 the foliage, which is abundant when the tree stands in rich 

 soil, and rather thin in more sterile situations, is a dark 

 green during summer and turns to a clear yellow in the 

 autumn. The Cercidiphyllum is a valuable timber-tree in 

 Japan, producing a wood which somewhat resembles that 

 of the Liriodendron, to which it is closely allied, and the 

 Ainos of Japan use it for canoes as the Indians of our own 

 country once used the wood of the Tulip Poplar. 



Mahernia verticillata. — This is a subshrub or woody 

 perennial which has been cultivated for seventy-five years, 

 and yet it is seen more rarely now than it was thirty or forty 

 years ago. The bright yellow bell-shaped flowers are very 

 pretty and abundant, and it used to be seen often drooping 

 about vases and sometimes in hanging baskets, for it is not 

 a compact upright grower, but rather spreads around in a 

 straggling fashion. In Florida, where it flourishes otit-of- 



