July 22, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



297 



stems from twelve to fifteen inches high, the blue flowers pro- 

 duced in showy racemes. V. longifolia, a common garden 

 plant, showy and effective in bloom ; it is about two and a half 

 feet high and has long blue racemes of flowers; several dis- 

 tinct forms of this plant are grown here — one form has rose- 

 colored flowers ; another is pubescent, while another is glabrous. 

 The best variety of this species blossoms a week or two later 

 and is known as V. longifolia, var. subsessilis. V. spicata 

 makes a neat and compact border plant, growing from one 

 foot to eighteen inches high, and has a short, dense spike of 

 bright blue flowers. The white-flowered variety of this species 

 blossoms at the same time and makes a fine contrast with the 

 numerous blue-flowered kinds. They thrive in a rich open 

 soil and do best away from the shade of trees. 



Salvia sylvestris makes a compact plant three feet high and 

 has showy spikes of deep purple flowers which last in good 

 condition for several weeks. S. numerosa is a stronger-grow- 

 ing plant with flower-spikes of a purplish color. S. Sclarea is 

 a distinct species three feet high, and its stems are thickly 

 clothed with long, ovate, wrinkled, hoary leaves. The flowers 

 are in panicles and the corolla is of a bluish white color, while 

 the calyx is white. In a sunny place in the border those Salvias 

 grow freely. They produce an abundance of seeds, from 

 which young plants are easily obtained. 



The best of the Skullcaps in bloom now is Scutellaria Baica- 

 lensis, better known in gardens as S. macrantha. This plant is 

 valuable, as it produces an abundance of dark blue flowers for 

 many weeks during the summer months. It is a Siberian 

 plant, about a foot in height, or slightly more, and has sessile, 

 lanceolate obtuse leaves. The individual flowers measure 

 about an inch in length and are borne plentifully in simple 

 racemes. Near the edge of the border it makes a neat plant 

 and grows easily in good enriched garden soil. The alpine 

 Skullcap spreads quickly, but if kept within bounds it makes a 

 showy plant. It is procumbent in habit and has short spikes 

 of purple flowers. Another species well worth growing, having 

 a neat habit and showy flowers, is S. scordifolia. The seeds of 

 the plants now in bloom here were received from Sweden last 

 year. It is like a good Brunella, but has much larger and 

 more showy flowers, which are borne in a dense short spike. 

 It is about a foot in height and grows either in a sunny posi- 

 tion or in the shade. 



Many of the Catnips are too weedy for ordinary border 

 plants, but an exceptionally good one now in bloom is Nepeta 

 macrantha. This is a handsome species, and has as showy 

 flowers as some of the Pentstemons. The square stems are 

 more than a yard high and sparsely clothed with opposite 

 lanceolate serrated leaves. The flowers are in long loose 

 racemes a foot in length. The corolla is the showiest part of 

 the flower, and measures an inch in length and half an inch in 

 diameter at the widest part, and is of a purplish color. N. 

 grandiflora is the next showiest species of this genus now in 

 bloom. 



The Chinese Bellflower, Platycodon grandiflorum, has just 

 begun to open its large bell-shaped flowers. This handsome 

 plant has all the good qualities that a good hardy perennial 

 plant requires. It has a good habit, with stout erect stems 

 which need no support to keep them upright, and has clean 

 healthy foliage, with large open showy flowers, deep blue, or 

 sometimes nearly white. It is perfectly hardy and grows easily 

 in any well-enriched garden soil. Our largest plants are about 

 a yard high, but the height of the plants varies. The flowers 

 are produced in clusters at the ends of the branches, but they 

 do not all open at the same time. The flower measures from 

 two to three inches in diameter. This Platycodon is easily 

 raised from seed, and if sown early in spring the plants will 

 blossom the first summer when they are about six inches high. 

 This plant is also known as Campanula grandiflora, and is a 

 native of China and Japan. 



Botanic Garden, Harvard University. Robert Cameron. 



The Best Dutch Bulbs. 



THE Dutch Bulb Society lately took a vote on their 

 choice of the best varieties of Hyacinths, Tulips, etc., 

 with the following result : 



Six white Hyacinths (single and double). — La Grandesse, 

 Grandeur a Merveille, Mont Blanc, L'Innocence, Madame van 

 der Hoop and Baron van Tuyll. 



Six blue Hyacinths (single and double).— Grand Maitre, King 

 of the Blues, Charles Dickens, Queen of the Blues, Czar Peter 

 and Regulus. 



Six rose-colored Hyacinths (single and double). — Gigantea, 

 Moreno, Noble par Merite, Roi des Beiges, Lord Macaulay and 

 Gertrude. 



Three Hyacinths, yellow and orange (single and double). — ■ 

 Ida, King of the Yellows and Sonora. 



Three purple Hyacinths (single and double). — Haydn, Sir 

 William Mansfield and Adelina Patti. 



Twenty-four Tulips (early single). — Pottebakker (464 votes), 

 La Precieuse, Keizerskroon, Vermilion Brilliant, Proserpine, 

 Joost van Vondel, Rose Griselin, La Reine, Rosa Mundi, 

 Chrysolora, Yellow Prince, Duchesse de Parma, Thomas 

 Moore, Kanarienvogel, Wouverman, L'Immaculee, Due van 

 Thol (scarlet), Ophir d'Or, Zilveren Standaard, Nelly, Rose Lui- 

 sante, Rembrandt and Gouden Standaard, with 189 votes. 



Twelve Tulips (double). — Murillo, Tournesol, Imperator 

 rubrorum, La Candeur, Salvator Rosa, Tournesol (yellow), 

 Rose Blanche (see colored plate Revue de I' Horticulture Bels;e 

 of June 1st), Rex rubrorum, Vurbaak, Mariage de ma fille, 

 Alba maxima and Raphael. The first had 461 votes, the latter 

 198 votes. 



Correspondence. 

 The Oak Primer. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir, — I have at my home in Auburndale a beautiful Oak 

 afflicted by some disease which causes the small branches to 

 fall to the ground. Can you tell me what the matter is and 

 suggest treatment ? 



Boston. E. P. S. 



[Our correspondent's Oak is afflicted with the larvae of 

 the Oak Primer, Stenocorus putator, which is unusually 

 abundant this year in the neighborhood of Boston. In its 

 adult state it is a slender long brown beetle, sprinkled with 

 gray spots, and varies from four and a half inches to six- 

 tenths of an inch in length. It lays its eggs in July, each 

 egg being placed close to the joint of a leaf-stalk or of a 

 small twig near the end of a branch of an Oak-tree. The 

 grub hatched from the egg penetrates the following season 

 to the pith of the branchletand continues its course toward 

 the body of the tree, and by devouring the pith forms a 

 cylindrical mine several inches long in the centre of the 

 branch. Having reached its full size it cuts off the branch 

 at the lower end of its burrow by gnawing away the wood 

 from within, leaving only the ring of bark untouched; 

 then, retiring backward, it stops up its hole in the trans- 

 verse section with the fibres of the wood and awaits the 

 fall of the branch, which is broken off and precipitated to 

 the ground by a slight breeze. The presence of the grub 

 is not discovered until the branch falls, and there is nothing 

 to do but to gather up the branches as fast as the)' fall and 

 burn them, and in this way prevent the spread of this 

 pest. — Ed.] 



In the Mountain Trails. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — I have just returned from a three-weeks' drive through 

 the same mountain region near here where we had journeyed 

 ten years ago, and I remember that we then considered the 

 popular novelist's pictures of the moonshine regions and 

 picturesque backwood characters had not been overdrawn. 

 Such utter shiftlessness and entire absence of concern for any- 

 thing beyond the merest animal existence could only be con- 

 ceived by one who had passed the windowless huts from which 

 poured out droves of half-naked, shock-haired children, "jest 

 fer to see the stranger" ; the few weedy fields, almost hidden 

 from sight by the brush in the fence corners ; the scrub cows 

 and razor-backed hogs that never saw pasture or pen ; these, 

 together with the absence of schoolhouses and churches, told 

 of the general do-nothingness of the population. 



But ten years have wrought great changes, and during a 

 drive of more than four hundred miles through one of the most 

 out-of-the-way regions in America, we saw but a half-dozen 

 windowless houses and fewer barefooted women. We saw 

 orchards dotting the hillsides, enclosed yards about most of 

 the houses, and not a few comfortable and roomy dwellings, 

 built with some faint pretensions to beauty. In the larger val- 

 leys there was a sprinkling of fairly well-tilled farms, and a 

 growing taste for the beautiful as expressed in occasional 

 shrubbery and flowers. 



This last surprised us above all else. Ten years before we 

 had observed almost no attempts at flower-gardening, and 

 there are still some districts with no flowers but the wild ones, 



