304 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 440. 



riuals and biennials merely, but shrubs and trees also 

 increase and multiply with extraordinary ease in the rough 

 garden, where the discipline is not too severe. Fruit and 

 flower, shade and fragrance, homely use and stately adorn- 

 ment mingle happily here in the garden held in partnership 

 with Nature. 



Fruit-trees, hardy shrubs, climbers and flowering peren- 

 nials, the chief elements required for the formation of a 

 garden of this type, are now supplied in unprecedented 

 variety and at trifling cost. It is surprising that more sum- 

 mer residents in the country do not taste for themselves 

 the full flavor of this inexhaustible recreation and delight of 

 making all sorts of exquisite and delightful things grow 

 where not one grew before. 



Amherst, Mass. O. H. A. LrOOdak. 



Plant Notes. 



Viburnum cassinoides. 



THE value of the eastern American Viburnums as gar- 

 den plants has been pointed out over and over again 

 in these columns. With larger acquaintance and better 

 opportunities for watching them in cultivation, our admira- 

 tion for this group of plants increases, however, and we 

 offer no excuse for recurring to it again. Nearly all the 

 species are good garden plants, the only exceptions being 

 the Hobble-bush, Viburnum lantanoides, the most beauti- 

 ful, perhaps, of the entire group, but an exceedingly diffi- 

 cult plant to manage in cultivation, and Viburnum pauci- 

 florum, a diminutive boreal and alpine representative of 

 the Opulus section of the genus. The flowers of this slender 

 shrub are not particularly showy, and in the Arnold 

 Arboretum, at least, where a great deal of attention has 

 been given to the cultivation of these plants, it has never 

 flourished. It is certainly needless to speak here of the 

 Cranberry-tree, Viburnum Opulus. Every one knows 

 this tall shrub either in its natural state, with flat cymes 

 surrounded with large white ray-flowers, or in its sterile 

 form, in which all the flowers are neutral and it is the gar- 

 den Snowball. This shrub grows all through the northern 

 temperate zone, and the best form in cultivation is one 

 which came originally from northern China, and was first 

 raised in the Arnold Arboretum. 



Viburnum pubescens and Viburnum acerifolium are both 

 low shrubs of good habit with abundant white flowers and 

 brilliant autumnal foliage. Viburnum dentatum and Vibur- 

 num molle are large shrubs with glossy, sharply cut leaves, 

 ample clusters of white flowers and beautiful bright blue 

 fruit. The former flowers at least two weeks earlier than 

 the latter, which, although of more southern range, is 

 equally hardy and equally desirable as a garden plant. 



Our two tree Viburnums, Viburnum Lentago and Vibur- 

 num prunifolium, the first of more northern range, are well 

 suited to decorate American parks, where they can be used 

 with great effect on the borders of wood roads or the mar- 

 gins of woods in company with native Thorns, the Flower- 

 ing Dogwood, the Red-bud and several other small trees 

 for which the silva of eastern North America is specially 

 distinguished. These two Viburnums are plants which last 

 a long time and continue to improve for many years. In 

 good soil they often grow twenty feet tall and make heads 

 at least twenty feet through. Like all the plants of this 

 group, they are distinguished in appearance, and it is a 

 pleasure to see them at every season of the year. 



But the best garden plant among our Viburnums is 

 Viburnum cassinoides, of which a figure appears on page 

 305 of this issue. It is a common inhabitant of northern 

 swamps, and is distributed from Newfoundland to the Sas- 

 katchawan and southward to New Jersey. In its native 

 swamps this Viburnum is a straggling shrub sometimes 

 twelve feet in height, but in cultivation it makes a very 

 compact symmetrical bush five or six feet tall and broad. 

 The leaves are thick, leathery and rather dull green, and 

 the flowers, which are pale straw-color, or nearly white, 



are produced in compact, pedunculate, flat, five-rayed 

 cymes four or five inches in diameter. They are succeeded 

 by abundant fruit, which is pale green at first, then bright 

 rose-color, and finally dark blue-black, berries of the three 

 colors often appearing together in the same cluster. 



Viburnum cassinoides has been used in great quantities 

 to decorate the margins of the roads through the Arnold 

 Arboretum, and seedling plants show a decided tendency 

 to vary both in the size and form of the leaves, in the size 

 of the flower-clusters, which are flat or rounded above, and 

 in the color of the flowers. This tendency indicates that 

 if large numbers of plants are raised from seeds individual 

 plants may surpass in some particular of foliage, habit or 

 flower any of the plants of the normal type, and a desirable 

 variety may be established. Although it has been said 

 many times before in this journal, we cannot refrain from 

 saying again that among the hardy shrubs of all countries 

 there are very few which surpass Viburnum cassinoides in 

 beauty and in all those qualities which make a shrub 

 desirable. 



Castanea dentata. — The American Chestnut is one of 

 the small number of our forest-trees of the first size which 

 is conspicuous for its flowers, and since it blossoms in mid- 

 summer when it has no rivals in this respect it attracts 

 still more attention. These flowers, which appear in tassel- 

 like masses, are made up of aments from six to eight inches 

 long, the green stems covered for the whole length with 

 crowded flower clusters. Their cream-colored blossoms 

 show to the best advantage among the dark green leaves, 

 and in early July Chestnut-trees in flower, whether stand- 

 ing by themselves or in the forest, are striking objects in 

 the landscape. But the Chestnut is beautiful at every sea- 

 son, and a full-grown tree, with its broad, dome-like head 

 and massive trunk, appears as sturdy as any Oak. The 

 foliage is rich glossy green, and it is rarely injured by fun- 

 gous diseases or insects. No tree grows so rapidly on the 

 dry gravelly hillsides of the north-eastern states, and for 

 various purposes it is one of our most useful timber-trees. 

 It has the peculiar merit, too, of throwing up shoots from 

 the trunk which become large enough for fence-posts or 

 railway-ties in a few years, so that a Chestnut forest can 

 be cut over every thirty or forty years, and continue pro- 

 ductive for generations. The abundant nuts of this tree 

 are much better in flavor than those of the Japanese or 

 European trees, and there is little doubt that by proper 

 selection a strain of nuts of large size could be produced, 

 and when the population of this country increases so as to 

 make it necessary to husband our home food supply, our 

 own Chestnut-tree may become as important for the pro- 

 duction of nuts as its near relatives in southern Europe. 



Hemerocallis aurantiaca major. — A year ago it was stated 

 in one of Mr. Watson's letters to this journal that a first-class 

 certificate had been given to this handsome Day Lily by 

 the Royal Horticultural Society. In the last number of 

 The Garden received here there is a good picture from a 

 photograph of a plant in flower. We have never seen this 

 plant flowering in this country, but as it appeared in the 

 Botanical Garden at Oxford a few weeks ago it was worthy 

 of all the commendation which has been bestowed upon 

 it. In form and habit it seems to resemble Hemerocallis 

 fulva, so common in old-fashioned gardens, but the flowers 

 are much larger, fully six inches across, and of a uniform 

 deep yellow. It has especial value since it flowers after 

 H. flava, which we have often commended as one of the 

 best of garden plants, with its fragrant lemon-yellow flow- 

 ers on long naked stems. A large vase filled with the long- 

 stemmed flowers of either of these Day Lilies is a very 

 imposing object. H. Dumortieri is another good plant, 

 although its deep orange-yellow flowers are borne on 

 shorter stems and they have no fragrance. It is admirable, 

 however, for massing on shrub borders like the old H. fulva, 

 or Mahogany Lily, as it is sometimes called. H. Thun- 

 bergii is another garden species which ought to be 

 better known, for it is quite as easy to grow as any of the 



