2 3 8 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 433.. 



red kinds, mixed with the white and Auricula-eyed varieties, 

 make a very cheerful group. The Sweet William is one of 

 the flowers that one associates with cottage gardens and with 

 thrifty and happy homes. It appeals to old association, to 

 memories of our youth, and flourished along with hardy 

 Pinks, Columbines, Everlasting Peas, Lilies-of-the-valley and 

 Wallflowers in the gardens of our childhood. No rare novel- 

 ties will ever quite take the place of these old favorites. 



The early Mock Oranges are out of bloom, but a very beau- 

 tiful specimen, which was labeled Philadelphus Yokohama 

 when it came from the nurseries, is now flowering profusely. 

 Its bloom is delicately fragrant, and the flowers are larger and 

 of a purer white than the commoner kinds. The expanded 

 flower measures an inch and a half across. This Philadelphus 

 is one of the most beautiful shrubs at Rose Brake. 



In the wild and rock gardens the Yellow Lilies are still very 

 showy, and the Orange Lily is very effective in a bold group 

 against a background of shrubbery. The cold, damp weather 

 of last May lengthened the blooming period of this Lily, which 

 has been flowering for three weeks, but is now nearly over. 

 More delicate beauties are the little groups of Tunica Saxifraga 

 and the pretty pink Lychnis Flos-cuculi, which also remains in 

 bloom a long time. 



Honeysuckles and Roses are making the air fragrant, and 

 one opulent Magnolia, M. glauca, with its rich odor and creamy 

 cups of bloom, claims our admiring homage as queen of the 

 week. 



Shepherdstown, W. Va. Danskc DtXlldridge. 



Some Rare Erythroniums. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — In 1891 the late Sereno Watson published his revision 

 of the American Erythroniums. Mr. Watson gave a very care- 

 ful study to the subject, and his work gives the student a safe 

 guide, although in one or two instances his species seem 

 so close together that only the skilled observer can distinguish 

 them. No really new species have been added since Watson's 

 revision, but several good color forms have been brought to 

 light, of which Erythronium Johnsonii is the most notable addi- 

 tion to the flower garden. It is to be expected that a thorough 

 exploration of the forests of the Pacific slope will bring to light 

 many color forms, if not new species. Few know what vast 

 tracts of the north-west have never been explored at all by 

 trained botanists. Nothing emphasizes this so much as the 

 fact that manv species collected by the early explorers have 

 been lost sight of and have come to be considered as mythical. 

 I have found several species of great beauty which were not in 

 any of the great herbariums and were thought to be errors of 

 the authors. Even in localities near the homes of skilled ob- 

 servers, species are sometimes so local as to be easily over- 

 looked. 



Perhaps the most striking of the Pacific coast Erythroniums 

 is the group related to E. revolutum. Only one of this group 

 is much known in our gardens. E. revolutum, var. Bolanderi, 

 better known as E. Smithii, has long been in cultivation. Of 

 the others, a few of E. Johnsonii were sent out last year, and 

 the rest are unknown in the garden. 



To be appreciated properly the Erythroniums should be 

 seen in their own homes ; in the shaded canons among the 

 wood plants, with their mottled leaves of immense size, almost 

 as beautiful as the flowers, and their tall graceful scapes and 

 lovely lily-like flowers, I can imagine no more beautiful mass 

 than a large bed of these Dog-tooth Violets. 



In all of the Revolutum group the leaves are mottled ; in the 

 type and Erythronum Johnsonii the mottling is in rich brown 

 or mahogany ; in the others in green and white. As com- 

 pared to the E. giganteum group, the scapes are stout, the 

 flowers have more substance, and the petals, while recurved, 

 yet more widely spreading ; the stamens have broad awl- 

 shaped filaments, and the auricles at the base of the inner 

 petals are very prominent in all of the group and pressed 

 closely to the filaments. E. revolutum and its varieties are 

 hardly as graceful as the exquisitely formed E. giganteum (E. 

 grandirlorum of our gardens), but excel it in the substance and 

 coloring of the flowers. 



Erythronium revolutum (type) is a plant of medium size, 

 leaves mottled in mahogany, scape one to three flowered. In 

 color it varies from almost a pure white, with a most delicate 

 greenish caste and brown and purple markings at base of 

 petals, to a rich yellow similarly marked. 



Erythronium Johnsonii is in leaf and habit the same, except 

 that in my own garden it is one-flowered. In coloring the 

 flowers are a bright clear red, shading to dark red toward the 

 middle, and the centre a fine orange. 



Erythronium revolutum, var. Bolanderi (E. Smithii), is a 

 native of the Redwood forests of the northern part of Mendocino 

 County, California. Its northward range has not been deter- 

 mined, as from its own habitat an almost unknown (botan- 

 ically) region stretches to the north. This species is of low 

 habit, the leaves mostly mottled in white, seldom more than 

 one-flowered, and the widely spread blossoms opening a pure 

 white and at last becoming purple. 



I had the pleasure this spring of discovering a new variety of 

 Erythronium revolutum, or, perhaps, only rediscovering this 

 beautiful plant. Its leaves are mottled in white and green. 

 The scapes, as I saw them in large beds, were tall, ranging 

 from ten inches to nineteen inches high. The petals are nar- 

 rower than in the other forms of E. revolutum. Of those seen 

 a very few were white, deeply suffused with pink, on opening, 

 and soon changing to a deep wine-purple. In by far the 

 greater number of instances they opened up a delicate pink, 

 and turned while still fresh to wine-purple. This is the largest 

 of the group. 



Its home is in the Redwood region of Mendocino County. 

 In a note in his revision Watson says about Erythronium revo- 

 lutum : " Described by Smith as having purple flowers, and an 

 original specimen in Herbarium, Kew, bears the note by Sir 

 W. J. Hooker, fl. rubr. purp., but it is rarely that the petals 

 assume the purple tinge in drying, and the ground for the 

 statement is unknown. No purple-flowered species is now 

 found on Vancouver Island where Menzie's specimens were 

 collected." 



My new form corresponds very closely to Smith's descrip- 

 tion, and I have no doubt is identical. It is certainly strange if 

 the counterpart of a species collected over a hundred years 

 ago, and not since seen, should be found so far away. 

 Ukiah, Calif. Carl Purdy. 



The Increase of Redwood Forests. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — In an article in your paper a few years since I called 

 attention to the rapidity with which the woodlands in the Coast 

 Range of northern California are encroaching on the grassy 

 and brushy portions. Close observations since and conversa- 

 tions with many observing people confirm my statements. A 

 point upon which I did not then touch was recently brought to 

 my notice in a conversation with an intelligent pioneer. The 

 Redwood forest of to-day is a tangle underfoot and a mass of 

 broken limbs and fallen trees, all overgrown with Huckleber- 

 ries and various Ceanothus and other undergrowths, which 

 make travel, except by roads or trails, almost impossible 

 across country. The pioneer referred to tells me that in the 

 earlier days a man could go by horseback from the valleys in 

 the interior to the coast in almost any direction, as the woods 

 were almost free of undergrowth. He was told by the Indians 

 then that they made a yearly practice of firing the grass — I pre- 

 sume, both to drive out the game and to clear the way. Now 

 roads in every direction cross the forest belt, and the interests 

 of the settlers are against sweeping fires, so that they are be- 

 coming less frequent with each year. 



Here in the valleys the interest of every sheep rancher is 

 against fires, and they do not sweep through close-cropped 

 ranges as they did when the grass grew waist-high, 

 uiiiah, Calif. Carl Purdy. 



The Wild Garden. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — No spot in the flower garden yields me as much pleas- 

 ure as that which is devoted to the native plants which I gather 

 from the woods and fields. While the Crocuses were yet in 

 bloom, the snow-white blossoms of the Bloodroot appeared, 

 quickly followed by the Dog-tooth Violet and the beautiful little 

 Dicentra cucullaria, or Dutchman's Breeches. Soon after these 

 followed two species of Trillium, and then the sky-blue Lung- 

 wort, Mertensia Virginica, with Phlox polemonium and dif- 

 ferent Violets. By the middle of May the feathery spikes of 

 Tiarella were giving place to the graceful native Columbine 

 and Sweet Cicely. Aside from the beauty that this plot fur- 

 nishes, here is an opportunity for studying the habits of various 

 plants which one does not enjoy unless they are constantly 

 under the eye. The most interesting problem is the constant 

 struggle for existence or for mastery among them. If let alone, 

 the wild Columbine, Viola cucullata.Thalictrum cornuti, Gera- 

 nium maculatum, Lysimachia quadrifolia and Onoclea sensi- 

 bilis will soon smother out their neighbors. Lungwort, 

 Bloodroot, Moon Seed, some of the Vetches, Spring Beauty, 

 Dog-tooth Violets, some of the Ferns like Osmundas and 



