September 9, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



365 



advantage to have them on their own roots. Severe frosts 

 kill the shoots down to the ground, but this does not much 

 matter as the plants push into vigorous growth from below 

 as soon as warm weather returns. At Kew the shoots are 

 protected from frost by sticking a few Yew branches about 

 them. Mr. Robinson does not mulch his Roses with 

 manure, the only mulch they get being a sort of carpet of 

 bedding Violas (Tufted Pansies), Saxifragas, etc. Where 

 the soil is poor or the subsoil gravelly, I should, however, 

 recommend a good annual mulch with manure. In Mr. 

 Robinson's garden the Roses are grouped in beds upon a 

 smooth lawn, some of the varieties being represented by 

 groups of a dozen plants or more. The effect of the whole, 

 when the flowers are at their best, is superb, while monotony 

 is impossible, owing to the ever-changing character of the 

 display, to-day's best rose being second or third to-morrow, 

 and so on. Mr. Robinson gives the palm to Marie Van 



Fig. 48. — Aquilegia Jonesii. 



Houtte, which is also the most beautiful of the varieties 

 grown at Kew, the second best being Comtesse Riza du 

 Pare. I made a list of three dozen of those which I thought 

 best of those in flower at Gravetye, which I give here in 

 the hope that it will assist those who desire to have a gar- 

 den of Tea Roses of great variety in habit of growth, form, 

 size and color of flowers, and all of first-rate quality : Anna 

 Olivier, Augustine Guinoisseau, Bouquet d'Or, Christine 

 de Noue, Clement Nabonnand, Doctor Grill, Duchesse 

 d'Auerstadt, Duchesse Marie Immaculata, Edith Gifford, 

 Eliza Fagier, George Nabonnand, Gloire Lyonnaise, Jean 

 Gravier, Jean Pernet, Jeanne Guillaumez, Maman Cochet, 

 Madame Hoste, Madame Lambard, Madame Joseph 

 Schwartz, Madame Charles, Madame Welsh, Marie Van 

 Houtte, Marquise de Vivens, Narcisse, Nardy, Pauline 

 Labonte, Princess Marie d'Orleans, Princess de Sagan, 

 Rubens, Souvenir de Madame Sableyrolles, Souvenir de 

 Madame Levet, Souvenir deS. A. Prince, Viscountess Folke- 



stone. It will be perceived from the names that most of 

 these are of French origin. I do not pretend to have 

 included here all that are first-rate, but any one who secures 

 these and cultivates them properly will have a good repre- 

 sentative collection of Tea Roses. [We are glad to have 

 this report as to the condition of the Tea Roses at Gravetye 

 Manor in late August. In mid-June they made a picture 

 which no one who saw them can forget, and doubtless 

 their beauty and fragrance will be a continual delight 

 until late in autumn. They certainly make one of the 

 most interesting features of Mr. Robinson's charming place. 

 If any other shrub displayed its flowers all summer long 

 we would weary of its constant presence, but who was 

 ever tired of seeing roses? No other plant can fill the 

 place of Tea Roses used in this way, and yet they are so 

 rarely seen planted as they are at Gravetye that Mr. Robin- 

 son may be said to have discovered or created a new kind 

 of garden. — Ed.] 



Alth.ea ficifolia. — This is the stateliest and certainly 

 one of the most beautiful of the numerous tall herbaceous 

 plants, Malvaceous and other, now flowering in the bor- 

 ders at Kew. It is, in a broad sense, a single Hollyhock, 

 but it differs from all the forms of Hollyhock known to me 

 in its slender stems, its deeply lobed Fig-like leaves and 

 the development of the flowers in tufts here and there over 

 the stems. The plants are large spreading masses, seven 

 feet high, and the flowers are of a soft sulphur-yellow color. 

 It reproduces itself freely from seeds and is a biennial. 

 Although really an old garden plant, Althaea ficifolia was 

 unknown in English gardens until reintroduced to Kew 

 two years ago. It is a native of the Levant, and was cul- 

 tivated in England nearly three hundred years ago. 



London. W. WatSOll. 



Plant Notes. 



Aquilegia Jonesii. 



THE alpine slopes of the high mountains of northern 

 Wyoming and Montana are enlivened in summer 

 with this dwarf Columbine, which grows in great profusion 

 at elevations of about S,ooo feet just west of the continental 

 divide, where, mingled with Fritillaria pudica, it is con- 

 spicuous in the charming carpet of dwarf plants which 

 covers the slopes above the springs which feed the Flat- 

 head River. It is a densely csespitose, soft-pubescent plant 

 with much-thickened branched, ascending root-stalks cov- 

 ered with the closely imbricated persistent bases of the 

 petioles above which rise the crowded leaves of the year ; 

 these are biternately divided with minute-clustered ovate 

 divisions. The flower-stalk, which is from one to three 

 inches in height, bears a single bright blue flower which 

 appears disproportionately large for the plant. 



Aquilegia Jonesii, which is one of the most distinct and 

 beautiful of the American Columbines, is, we believe, still 

 untried in gardens, to which, however, our illustration on 

 this page will, it is hoped, serve to introduce it. It was 

 discovered by Dr. C. C. Parry on the Phlox Mountain, 

 in north-western Wyoming, in 1S75, and ten years later 

 it was found by Canby and Sargent on the old Marias 

 Pass, in northern Montana.* 



Cultural Department. 

 Dodder on Garden Vegetables. 



TWICE during this season samples of truck crops have 

 been sent to this station with complaints of injury 

 being done by what proved, upon inspection, to be Dodder. 

 The first lot of attacked plants was seedling Egg-plants 

 from a hot-bed, and the second was a score of onion tops, 

 upon which the parasite had made itself thoroughly at home. 

 It is not unusual to find various species of Cuscuta grow- 

 ing upon the wild plants of the lowlands, and in some 



* Parry, Am* JVat., viii. f 211 (1874). — Robinson, 



