268 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 436. 



ous shoots that the buds are injured, and always quite as much 

 so on the healthiest plants. Occasionally, when all the upper 

 buds are flowerless the weaker side branches will bear fully 

 developed flowers. 



The successful acclimatization of so many doubtful varieties, 

 embracing new, rich and distinct colors, has been surprising. 

 But it has not been done without attention to the minutest 

 details and a regular system of records. The frequent removal 

 of a variety from one place or position of exposure to another 

 has been necessary to ensure a thorough test, and this has 

 been done when less interested cultivators would have con- 

 signed the variety under test to the rubbish heap. Often it 

 has been a question of kill orcure, and then the most unsightly 

 plants have been removed to a swamp as a last recourse. This 

 swamp is a low piece of ground, near the water-level, alto- 

 gether composed of peaty soil, and is occasionally flooded. 

 Nevertheless, it has become a recruiting ground, and from the 

 road there is quite a show of bloom. This is remarkable when 

 it is remembered that all the plants, when removed here, were 

 considered almost beyond recovery. In this connection it is 

 worthy of note that our locally native species, R. maximum, 

 grows naturally in swampy places, and when planting on 

 higher ground, good deep soil and plenty of water must be 

 provided for it. The remarkable success achieved here has 

 been due almost entirely to close attention to these details. 



Distinctly spotted varieties of lighter shades are still lacking. 

 A recent importation for trial includes some of this character, 

 which it is hoped will prove hardy. Some of these have the 

 broader, rounder leaf, the almost certain criterion of hardiness, 

 while others have narrower leaves, and can almost at once be 

 set down as doubtfully hardy. 



Hybrids in which the blood of our native Rhododendron 

 Catawbiense prevails are the hardiest in constitution, and from 

 these some of the hardiest and best rose and scarlet shades 

 are derived. The following varieties have been thoroughly 

 tested, and have proved entirely hardy : Album granditiorum 

 is an old variety, and there are many large plants here ; in 

 point of beauty its magnificent trusses of pink flowers, chang- 

 ing to white, are scarcely exceeded by any of the newer kinds. 

 Lady Grey Egerton, silvery blush, with grayish brown spots, is 

 strikinglv effective. Charles Bagley is cherry-red, with a fine 

 truss and foliage. Caractacus is deep crimson, and every- 

 where recommended. Lady Crossly, salmon-pink, with broadly 

 campanulate flowers, is represented by some fine plants. Lady 

 Armstrong, seen in many places, was once thought tender, 

 but is now regarded one of the best hardy varieties, handsome 

 in foliage as well as truss ; the flowers are rosy red and much 

 spotted. Charles Dickens seems to me the most striking of 

 all the red Rhododendrons. Sefton is another grand variety 

 which has only within the last few years proved hardy ; it is 

 deep maroon, with a large truss, large flowers and handsome 

 foliage. Kettledrum is hardy and distinct, rose-colored. Other 

 proved sorts are Old Port, plum color; Alexander Dancer, 

 beautiful warm red, and one of the earliest and best ; John 

 Waterer, free, dark crimson; Maximum Wellesianum, blush, 

 changing to white ; Delicatessimum, also blush, changing to 

 white, and late, the handsomest of all for individual speci- 

 mens — it is fully a week later, blooming with the Mountain 

 Laurel, Kalmia latifolia, and it is largely associated with them 

 for effect ; Mrs. Milner, rich crimson. 



Some varieties not yet in the market are here for trial. They 

 are in all respects the best in their line of color yet sent out. 

 H. S. Hunnewell is white, with brown spots, compact and 

 free. F. L. Ames is of the best type, and one which must 

 become the ideal ; the individual flowers are very large, round 

 and smooth, with a white centre and pink edge ; it is free from 

 the fringe characteristic of many of the older varieties. 

 Charles S. Sargent is a red rose-flowered kind, with a compact 

 truss and good habit. Mrs. C. S. Sargent is said to be the 

 pink Everestianum ; it resembles the older variety in some 

 respects, but the flowers are larger. 



Under canvas there is an exhibition at Wellesley of distinctly 

 tender varieties, all of which are removed to cellars in winter. 

 These additional three hundred or more varieties embrace 

 the most beautiful colors known among these plants, but it is 

 hardly probable they will come into general cultivation, on 

 account of the special conditions required. Princess Mary of 

 Cambridge is a beautiful blush with a deeper edge ; out-of- 

 doors this variety has stood the winter well, and, though some 

 buds were killed, it still shows a few perfect flowers. Kate 

 Alice Waterer has fine trusses of erect flowers, rosy edged, 

 with a white centre, upper petals blotched with brown. Other 

 tender varieties are Mirandum, red- rose, beautiful truss; Mrs. 

 Shuttleworth, scarlet, light centre, much spotted — a distinctly 

 beautiful variety ; Mrs, Simpson, white, beautifully spotted; 



John Walter, rich crimson ; Ralph Saunders, deep crimson, 

 finely marked ; Mrs. John Clutton, almost pure white. This 

 partial list can give only an inadequate idea of this rich collec- 

 tion, and all who can make it convenient should visit Welles- 

 ley during the flowering season, when Mr. Hunnewell opens his 

 grounds to the public. 



Wellesley, Mass. T. D. Hatfield. 



Correspondence. 



Native Plants at Niagara Falls. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir,— Nature never fails to give us her overtones when she 

 plays her great symphonies, any more than do the great com- 

 posers. We cannot fail to catch the softening and mellowing 

 thus lent to the musical strain, for hearing is involuntary, but 

 we must so often be taught to see what is right before us, and 

 our teachers are so few, that we not infrequently miss all but the 

 most dazzling part of the outdoor picture. The devotee of field 

 science is never more aware of this than on visiting Niagara 

 Falls. Standing a fortnight ago on Prospect Point, perhaps 

 the most striking scenic spot in the world, I leaned over the 

 edge of the sheer and partly overhanging wall and looked 

 down, not at the great sheet of water, but at the rocks that 

 continue the gorge northward. 



There is often scarcely a handful of soil to the square foot, 

 and sometimes apparently none at all on the face of the great 

 precipice, yet it is clothed with wild plants almost from top to 

 bottom. So hidden are they by the perpendicular wall and the 

 artificial coping above it that many of them are hard to make 

 out, but new discoveries are made at every change of posi- 

 tion. The Columbine, Aquilegia Canadensis, loves the spot 

 so well that its bright red blossoms appear sometimes after 

 they have disappeared from gardens. The plant is the most 

 venturesome and hardy of any there, and appears in a rock 

 crevice where nothing else but the bare wall is seen. It is dif- 

 ficult to understand how it subsists or even clings to the wall, 

 but it is content and holds out no hands for sustenance except 

 to the humid air. One or two wild Roses are there, and the 

 Wild Gooseberry sends up sturdy stems near the top of the 

 wall. A Spirsea, probably tomentosa, is at home, and Golden- 

 rods, Rhus toxicodendron and probably Rhus radicans, as it 

 is everywhere about the Falls, and Ampelopsis quinquefolia. 

 Creepers are rampant, hardly less so than in the woods on 

 Goat Island, where the wild Grape attains great size and runs 

 freely over the tops of quite tall trees. The wild Grape on the 

 edge of the gorge was just setting its crop and showed a luxu- 

 riance of bunches that would charm a vineyardist. Bitter- 

 sweet and Solanum Dulcamara are also there. These vines 

 do not venture far down the wall, as they need soil, but they 

 are in the spirit of the place and are seen rising from its base 

 and sometimes making their way far up the moist surface, 

 while the Aquilegia and some smaller greenery, that it is hard 

 to make out in the distance, crop out of every seam and ridge 

 and terrace from base to summit. 



It is this acceptance of the wild spirit of Niagara that makes 

 its flora so acceptable. The soil is naturally thin and sterile, 

 so that the effort to turn the river bank on the mainland into 

 a cultivated park is so far indifferently successful, and the 

 ambitious evergreens that were planted on Bath Island are all 

 gone. But this makes no difference with the wild plants ; they 

 flourish everywhere and are as indifferent to the soil as any 

 but actual air-plants can be. 



The wildest of our native plants do not yield naturally to 

 cultivation, because they demand atmospheric conditions that 

 cannot be transplanted with them. The result is that they lin- 

 ger awhile out of their native element and then disappear. 

 Let Niagara pretty generally alone and it will never want for 

 flora that is appropriate to it. There is very doubtful need of 

 the forest-tree nursery that is made to disfigure a part of Goat 

 Island, or the thicket of Snowberry, Symphoricarpus racemo- 

 sus, that begins to shut in the drive from Batlu Island. 



Buffalo, N. Y. Joint Chamberliii. 



Notes from West Virginia. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — Last June I planted an innocent-looking little tuber of 

 Thladiantha dubia in a bed of choice bulbs, and soon had a 

 large vine, with scabrous heart-shaped leaves and yellow 

 flowers about as pretty, though not as large, as those of a 

 Pumpkin. It wandered all over the bed, hiding and choking 

 finer plants, and had to be confined to the margin by pegging 

 down. As it did not commend itself to me as worth saving, I 



