1 62 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 426. 



We have seen oranges in Florida judged somewhat in 

 this strict fashion, but certainly it is not common in Ameri- 

 can exhibitions to lay such a stress on flavor and quality 

 as is indicated in this schedule. Every one will admit that 

 in our exhibitions great size and showy appearance count 

 for more than they deserve. For dessert fruit, a beautiful 

 appearance is certainly an advantage ; but, after all, quality, 

 if we use the word to include flavor, ought to be the con- 

 trolling element of its value. In our home market it is 

 true that a beautiful apple or pear will find a readier sale 

 than one which is less attractive in appearance, although it 

 may be better in quality. We apprehend that this condi- 

 tion of affairs prevails to some extent in England, and yet 

 these prizes would seem to indicate that English horticul- 

 turists lay more stress on quality than we do here. If it is 

 true that the English market demands high quality and that 

 it will demand it more urgently in the future, it is worth 

 while to inquire how long it will be profitable to ship Ben 

 Davis apples to Great Britain. This variety has keeping 

 qualities and appearance, and the trees are very productive, 

 but it is inferior in flavor to many other sorts, and it is 

 well for those who are raising apples for export to consider 

 whether more attention should not be given to the quality 

 of the fruit. No doubt, the time is coming when quality 

 will count for more at home than it has done, and the 

 growers who select varieties for the good texture and 

 high flavor of their fruit will probably make no mistake, 

 even for the home market. 



Thrinax in Florida. 



IN 1875 Dr. A. W. Chapman found growing on the Florida 

 keys one of the West Indian Thatch Palms, Thrinax 

 parviflora, Swartz, a tree twenty or thirty feet high, as it 

 grows in Florida, with a slender stem not more than 

 five inches thick, orbicular leaves three or four feet in 

 diameter, bright green above and pale below, and a short 

 slender-branched spadix with coriaceous sheaths pubescent 

 above the middle and often ciliate on the margins at the 

 apex. The flowers open in the autumn and are raised on 

 stout spreading pedicels ; the perianth is obscurely six- 

 lobed ; the six or nine stamens are composed of slender 

 filaments and introrse anthers, and the large funnel-formed 

 stigma is oblique at the apex. The fruit, which ripens in 

 the spring, is globose, black, a quarter of an inch in diam- 

 eter, with thin dry flesh closely investing a membranaceous 

 endocarp. The seed is tawny brown and marked by deep 

 vertical furrows caused by the enfolding of the seed-coat 

 into the ruminate albumen. The pedicellate flowers, the 

 thin dark flesh of the fruit and the grooved seeds with 

 ruminate albumen are typical of Thrinax as the. genus was 

 first described, and plants with these characters are now 

 grouped together in a section, Euthrinax. 



In 1879 Mr. A. H. Curtiss found on No Name and Boca 

 Chica keys another Thrinax which has been referred to 

 Thrinax argentea, Desfontaines, but it now turns out to 

 belong to another section of the genus (Porothrinax), and 

 appears to be undescribed. In Porothrinax the flowers are 

 nearly sessile; the fruit is yellowish brown, with a crusta- 

 ceous pericarp, and the seed is dark brown and lustrous, 

 without grooves, much depressed at the base, and the 

 uniform albumen is penetrated by a deep broad basal 

 cavity. The size of the fruits suggests the name of 

 Thrinax microcarpa* for this species. It is a tree rarely 



*Thrinax (Porothrinax) microcarpa, Sargent, n. sp. Fluwers solitary, ebracteo- 

 late. articulate on broad disk-like pedicels ; perianth cupular, white, six-lohed, the 

 lobes broadly ovate, acute, half as long as the ovary ; stamens six, inserted on the 

 base ot the perianth ; filaments broad and flat, slightly united below, slender and 

 terete above, exserted ; anthers oblong, emarginate, attached on the back, versatile, 

 refl -xed and extrorse at maturity ; ovary ovate, sessile, one. celled, orange co'ored, 

 gradually narrowed into a short stout style dilatetl into a broad funnel-formed truncate 

 stigma; ovule solitary, basalar. erect. Fruit pisiform, one-eighth of an inch in 

 diameter, tawny brown, short-stalked, bearing at its base the enlarged persistent 

 perianth of the flower, tipped with the remnants ot the style : pericarp crustaceous, 

 of two coats. Seed aubglobose, depressed at the l>.Tse; raphe obscure: hilum 

 basal, pale, conspicuous ; testa membranaceous, bright chestnut-brown. Embryo 

 apical in uniform albumen penetrated by a broad deep basal cavity. A slen- 

 der tree: twenty to thirty feet ; leaves terminal, orbicular, coriaceous, pale green 

 above, silvery white below, more or less coated while young with hoary tomentuni, 

 especially on the lower surface, plicately multifid, the divisions induplicate, with 

 thickened ribs and margins; rachis short, slightly convex, gradually narrowed and 



more than thirty feet in height, with a trunk eight or ten 

 inches in diameter covered with smooth pale blue rind, 

 flowering in the spring and ripening its fruit late in the 

 autumn. The leaves are from two to three feet across and 

 split to below the middle or near the base of the leaf almost 

 to the rachis into divisions which are an inch wide at the 

 middle of the leaf, and rather less than a quarter of an inch 

 wide at its base. Thrinax microcarpa grows on dry coral 

 soil on No Name Key, Bahia Hunda Key and the shores of 

 Sugar Loaf Sound, Florida. 



On the Marquesas keys and on some of the small keys 

 east of Key West there is another Euthrinax whose flow- 

 ers are still unknown. It is a low tree with a short thick 

 trunk raised above the surface of the ground by a cluster • 

 of stout roots, large orbicular leaves with blades longer 

 than the petioles, and fruit which differs from that of any 

 of the described species of Thrinax by the thickness of the 

 fleshy succulent pericarp. Portions of a leaf and a few 

 fruits of another Porothrinax, to be distinguished by its 

 much larger fruit, were collected by Dr. A. P. Garber at 

 Cape Sable in October, 1879, and are preserved in the Gray 

 Herbarium. 



The flowers, fruits and leaves of these two trees, with 

 information as to their distribution, size and uses, are 

 specially desired. C. S. S. 



The Tannin Value of Some North American Trees. 



.'T^ANNIN is found in the bark of nearly all trees, yet little 

 *■ attention is paid to the economic possibilities of this con- 

 stituent. When timber is cut for lumber the bark is usually 

 wasted. 



There appears to be no record indicating the amount of 

 tannin in many of our native trees. No doubt, all of them 

 have been tried at various times in the tanning industry, and 

 the barks of a few of them are used at the present time. The 

 following list of results recently obtained will indicate in a cer- 

 tain degree the value of a number of barks, but, as nearly all 

 of them were collected during autumn or winter, the percent- 

 ages of tannin given probably indicate the minimum amount 

 contained therein : 



Barks. 



Taxus Canadensis . . . . 



" baccata 



Libocedrus decurrens. 

 Thuya occidentalis. . . . 



'* gigantea 



Cupressus thyoides. . . 

 Juniperus Virginiana. . 



" Californica. 



" occidentalis 



" communis. . 



Taxodium distichum . . 

 Sequoia sempervirens. 



" gigantea 



Locality. 



I'ennsylv'nia 

 Bengal, India 



Oregon 



Philadelphia. 



New Jersey. . 

 Philadelphia. 

 California . . . 



Oregon 



Philadelphia. 

 Alabama .... 

 California. . . 



Moistur 



10 So 



I4-3S 



6.17 



5.61 



6-93 



34 75 

 86+ 



5-57 

 11- 

 5 95 

 6.61 



7-99 

 6,45 



Ash in abso- 

 lutely dry 

 baik. 



5-64 

 6. 19 

 2.24 

 6.46 

 6.10 



2.SS 



6.30 



9*3 

 5.60 



6-49 

 3.88 

 0.64 

 0-37 



Tannin in 

 absolutely 

 dry bark. 



20.46 

 22.83 



7 14 



6.13 

 8. .6 

 4 44 

 7-3° 

 8.10 



5-17 

 5.66 

 4.28 



1.63 



2.77 



Taxus baccata can hardly be considered a native tree, but the 

 foregoing results are given for comparison, and they indicate 

 a close relationship in the constituents of the two species, 

 although growing in widely different parts of the globe. The 

 amount of tannin found in these specimens indicates that the 

 bark of Taxus would make an efficient tannin material. 



Libocedrus, Thuya occidentalis and gigantea and all the 

 Junipers contain sufficient tannin to make them valuable in 

 the absence of richer material. Taxodium and Cupressus 

 under some circumstances would also be valuable. The 

 column headed " locality " in the foregoing chart indicates the 

 place where these particular specimens were collected, and 

 not in every case the place where the trees are native, for it 

 was necessary to get a few of the samples from nursery stock 

 near Philadelphia. 



My thanks are due to Miss Alice Eastwood, of San Francisco, 



rounded at the apex : Iigula orbicular, thick, concave, lined with hoary tomentum ; 

 petioles slender, flexible, biconvex, unarmed; vagina elongated, light brown, the 

 fibres slender. Spadix elongated, interfoliar, compound ; primary branches short, 

 slender, compressed, erect and spreading; secondary branches flower-bearing, 

 slender, pendulous ; spathes coriaceous, elongated, acute, deeply divided at the 

 apex, tomentose above the middle ; bracts acute, scarious, caducous. 

 No Name and Boca Chica keys, Florida, A. H. Curtiss, 1879. 



