494 



Garden and Forest. 



I Number 459. 



Doolan Canon has its Orchids also. There are but two, 

 but they are fine. Habenaria elegans is a delicate species 

 growing in shaded woods. I knew the canon long before 

 I first saw a Lady's Slipper in it. One day in exploring 

 for Ruby Lilies I discovered a considerable mountain side 

 of open timber, Redwood and Tanbark Oak, and in the 

 coolest and shadiest parts, around places where a little 

 moisture seeped out, were several fine plants of Cypripe- 

 dium montanum. It is an elegant plant in every respect. 

 The leaves are large and showy and the flower is very fine. 

 It forms clumps of usually one to three plants, with a running 

 scarred rhizome. The blossom comes in May, and with 

 sepals and wavy-twisted petals brownish and a white lip 

 veined in purple. The flower is about two inches across 

 and has the scent of vanilla. I have never seen it plenti- 

 ful or heard of it being so, except in one part of the " Blue 

 Mountains" region of eastern Oregon, where it is plentiful 

 in places. 



A feature of all these canons, disagreeable to many, but, 

 nevertheless, beautiful, is the great quantities of Poison 

 Oak. It is really too bad that so beautiful a shrub should 

 have poisonous qualities for so many. I have noted that 

 very few persons who live here from childhood are poi- 

 soned by it. I am entirely free from its effects. It grows 

 in dense copses in places, and in others it clambers over 

 the trees. In spring and summer its leaves are among the 

 best greens of the mountain, but in fall it is colored in the 

 most glowing reds and scarlets, and whole hillsides are 

 made beautiful by it. Like the Buckeye, it is a friend to 

 the choicest annuals, bulbous plants and Ferns. Among 

 the Poison Oak bushes are to be found the finest Fire 

 Crackers and other Brodiaaas, the largest Scarlet Larkspurs 

 and the finest plants of the showier annuals, such as 

 Clarkias, Godetias and Collinsias. 



The old sled road follows up the canon for fully two 

 miles, first through the open vale among the Oaks, then 

 through a gorge of cliffs, where a foothold for it was 

 blasted by pioneer woodsmen, then for a long way through 

 a section of long, smooth timbered slopes beautiful with 

 Redwood, Madrona, Live Oaks, Douglas Spruce, t-md 

 overlooking the stream-bed filled with large Alders and 

 second-growth Redwoods. Finally the road ends where 

 three precipitous gorges, each the parent of a living spring, 

 meet. There, where once stood a fine grove of Redwoods, 

 it ends, and some of the rails and pickets cut so long ago 

 still lay, as sound as when riven from the log. The cen- 

 tral gorge is a large spring coming from the rock. Looking 

 from the base, it is a wavy mass of Spikenard, Aralia Cali- 

 fornica, five to seven feet high, mixed with the dark green 

 fronds of the Chain Fern. On the sides are Oregon Maple. 

 Live Oaks hang from the cliffs, and a few large Redwoods, 

 which the old woodsmen could not reach, stand above as 

 they have stood for hundreds of years. Above, on every 

 side, stretch the long mountain slopes,' densely over- 

 grown with the Chapparal, effectually ending a tramp 



farther. 

 Ukiah, Calif. Carl Purdy. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Dipladenia Sanderi. — This new species, which has been 

 introduced from Brazil by Messrs. F. Sander & Co., St. 

 Albans, is a very promising plant for the stove. In 

 habit and general characters it resembles D. eximea, 

 another Sanderian introduction, described by Mr. Hems- 

 ley in 1893, but it differs from that species in having larger 

 flowers of a deeper shade of rose-red and conspicuously 

 blotched with yellow in the throat. The leaves are ellipti- 

 cal, about two inches long, the petiole half an inch long. 

 The flowers are in loose cymose racemes. Messrs. Sander 

 say that it grows and flowers with unusual freedom. Dipla- 

 denias have been brought into prominent notice in recent 

 years through the introduction of several fine species, one 

 of the best of them being D. atropurpurea, which, by the 



way, is happier when grown in an intermediate tempera- 

 ture, the flowers being richer and deeper in color and the 

 plants healthier than when grown in stove along with 

 those of the D. amabilis type. 



Begonia Gloire de Lorraine. — This is now the most 

 popular Begonia in England. It is one of the latest of 

 the hybrids raised from B. Socotrana, and is probably the 

 most decorative. Plants of it have been shown at exhibi- 

 tions, and are offered by nurserymen, which are simply 

 balls of rose-red flowers, and they will continue to flower 

 freely all through the winter. It is happiest when grown 

 in a warm greenhouse, the tubers started in April and 

 potted in light rich soil in five-inch pots. A position on a 

 shelf near the roof glass is best for them. By October they 

 form compact little bushes a foot in diameter, the leaves 

 small, obcordate, dark shining green, and the flowers in 

 loose racemes from almost every branchlet. It was raised 

 by Monsieur Lemoine from B. Socotrana and B. Dregei, 

 and was first noted in Garden and Forest, vol. v., p. 244, 

 fig. 48. Some growers who have essayed its cultivation 

 have given it up as being weak and " miffy," but when 

 properly treated it is neither the one nor the other. London 

 nurserymen say it sells better than any winter-flowering 

 Begonia grown. 



Kniphofia Nelsoni. — This plant has again flowered freely 

 at Kew, and its flowers have extended into the cold season 

 longer than any of its congeners. It has narrow, bright 

 green foliage, freely produced, and tall, elegant scapes, 

 three feet or four feet high in some cases, the flowers being 

 bright scarlet. It has stood several winters in the open air 

 at Kew. Herr Max Leichtlin, to whom Kew is indebted 

 for this plant, writes that it was introduced a few years ago 

 from the South African Republic. Opinions at first varied 

 as to its value, one well-known horticulturist condemning 

 it as poor in color and thin in spike. At Baden, however, 

 it is the most free-flowering of all the species ; " it is elegant, 

 not too large, flowers very late, and the flowers are bright 

 scarlet. It surpasses Kniphofia Macowani, and I am con- 

 vinced it will become a favorite when better known." Last 

 year we lifted some Kniphofias that had pushed up spikes 

 late in the autumn and planted them in pots to bloom in 

 the conservatory in winter, a use for which these plants are 

 well adapted. 



Eczema from Hyacinths. — The ban of the scientist has 

 been placed upon the common Hyacinth, which is said to 

 produce eczema in persons handlingand cleaning the bulbs, 

 the raphides from the dry scales, which are easily dispersed 

 by rubbing', entering the skin and causing irritation and 

 soreness. These raphides are needle-shaped crystals, the 

 largest of which are one-hundredth of an inch in length, 

 and are arranged in close bundles in the scales, those of 

 the Roman Hyacinth being the most virulent. Evidently, 

 this irritation is experienced only by very few of the many 

 persons who handle Hyacinth-bulbs, a similar case being 

 that of Primula obconica, which, in some persons who 

 handle it, causes a form of eczema. The Poison Vine, 

 Rhus Toxicodendron, has the same character. Examples 

 of the scales and raphides of the Hyacinth were recently 

 exhibited before the Linnasan Society, and Dr. Scott de- 

 scribed some experiments he had made which tended to 

 confirm the belief that irritation of the skin was caused as 

 described. 



Chrysanthemums. — Our National Society grows in strength 

 and importance, and the great annual exhibition, held 

 under its auspices in the Aquarium at Westminster a few 

 days ago, was, no doubt, the most wonderful display of the 

 Chrysanthemum in all its phases ever seen in this or any 

 other country. The usual drawbacks inseparable from the 

 Aquarium accompanied the exhibition, and one examined the 

 flowers amid the din and shrieks of those who had fat women, 

 boxing kangaroos, dancing elephants and similar wonders 

 to show. There is, however, some hope that a revival of 

 the effort to secure a suitable Floral Hall for London will 

 result in a better state of things before long. Meanwhile, we 

 have all the wonderful Chrvsanthemums grown with mar- 



