August 5, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



315 



growing- from one to three feet high. It is of a robust, 

 spreading habit, with thick glaucous stems and large glandu- 

 lous leaves from three to six inches long, the radical ones 

 very variable, but mostly spathulate or tongue-shaped, those 

 of the stem elliptic or ovate, with coarse, hairy edges. The 

 flowers are of a beautiful azure blue, an inch or more in diam- 

 eter, with lanceolate, accumulate petals and a thick, fleshy 

 and spiny calyx, collected in loose scorpioid racemes. The 

 flowers are most abundant in June and July, but the plant 

 flowers for a long period. It will grow well in a comparatively 

 dry gravelly soil in exposed and sunny positions. The Cac- 

 cinia ripens plenty of seeds and may easily be propagated by 

 this means. It is a perennial and very hardy. 



Dianthus caesius. — This species, which is popularly known as 

 the Cheddar Pink, looks very much in habit like a small Car- 

 nation, the leaves being very smooth and glaucous and grow- 

 ing in close, dwarf tufts only a few inches high. The flowers 

 are deliciously fragrant, of a bright rosy-red color, borne singly 

 on slender stems. The Cheddar Pink is very useful for edging 

 flower-beds and borders, and is especially attractive in large 

 masses in rockeries, or it may be planted in gravelly soil on 



cuttings in a warm house it grows rapidly and forms stems 

 which are square, with wavy wings, fringed with ciliate hairs 

 on the angles. The leaves are of a pleasant light green color, 

 three-parted, the divisions toothed ; opposite the leaves are 

 borne branched tendrils, which have the power of twining or 

 clasping anything within reach. These tendrils also possess 

 adhesive disks, like those of Ampelopsis, by which they can 

 attach themselves to a smooth surface, or they sometimes 

 insert the disks in crevices or cracks in the wall or wood- 

 work, wedging themselves fast by accessions of cellular tissue. 

 They are also interesting from the tact that they produce two 

 to four long aerial roots from each of the joints of the stem. 

 These are of a reddish color. They are from three to eighteen 

 feet long, and would probably have grown longer if the roof 

 of the house had been higher. On reaching the ground they 

 shrivel at the tip and then produce a branch-root a few inches 

 further up, but I only noticed one instance where the root took 

 hold of the soil. They lorm a screen-like festooning which 

 reminds one of the Japanese curtains in our houses. As the 

 plant finishes its growth for the season and begins to ripen its 

 stem a swelling takes place near the tip; this usually extends 



Fig. 42 Larkspurs in a Wild Garden. — See page 312. 



bare sunny hillsides, a position in which it is generally found 

 in a natural state. Like the Carnation, it may be increased by 

 means of cuttings or layering, or more slowly by means of 

 seeds, which should be sown in rich and porous soil in a cool 

 frame and transplanted once or twice the first summer, after 

 which it may be planted out permanently. It may be grown 

 in any soil not too wet, but it retains its beautiful dwarf and 

 compact habit best in poor soil and in open and sunny 

 positions. 



New York. YV. _/.A. 



Vitis pterophora. 



A COUPLE of tubers of this Vitis. often called eongyloides, 

 were received at the Botanic Garden of the University of 

 Pennsylvania from the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, England. 

 This is a very interesting plant to the physiologist as well as a 

 suitable climber for the stove-house in summer. The species 

 is indigenous to a few districts in Brazil and Peru, where it is 

 usually found growing in the forests. Started from tubers or 



through two joints. When fully grown it is oblong, about one 

 inch in diameter, and of a dark green color. 



When the stem is thoroughly ripened the tuber falls to the 

 ground, and will grow if properly taken care of. This is 1 

 ably the means whereby the plant propagates itself in its native 

 habitat, and is, no doubt, the method whereby the species is 

 preserved over a long period of drought. The tubers are 

 tenacious of life, and instances are known o) their retaining 

 vitality for a year. Neither flowers nor fruit are known. 



The old stem, if cut into pieces of two eyes each and plac< d 

 in a pan of coarse sand, will root in about three weeks. Tl 

 plants should be potted in four-inch pots in a rough loamy soil 

 well drained. They need plenty of water and should be 

 syringed freely once a day. When the roots have reach( 

 side of the pot the plants should be shifted into seven-inch 

 pots, in the same kind of soil, and staked up securely. They 

 will grow in these pots for the summer if watered freely, but 

 would be helped by another shift into ten-inch pots. They 

 should be trained along the rafters oi the roof, or they will 

 climb along wires if left to themsi Ives. The light green foliage 



