February 8, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



65 



Magnolia Kobus is exceedingly common in the forests 

 which clothe the hills in the neighborhood of Sapparo, 

 where it grows to a larger size than in any part of Japan 

 which I visited ; near the shores of Volcano Bay it occurs 

 in low swampy ground and in the neighborhood of streams, 

 in situations very similar to those selected by Magnolia 

 glauca in the United States. On the main island Magnolia 

 Kobus is much less common than it is in Hokkaido, and I 

 only met with it occasionally in the Hakone and Nikko 

 Mountains at considerable elevations above the sea. 



This handsome tree was introduced into the United States 

 by Mr. Thomas Hogg, and was distributed from the Par- 

 sons' Nurseries as Magnolia Thurberi under the belief that 

 it was an undescribed species. In cultivation it does not 

 flower freely in the young state, although a tree in Mr. L. C. 

 Moon's garden in Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 

 has produced flowers for the last two or three years. In 

 the Arnold Arboretum, where it was raised from seed sent 

 from Sapparo fifteen years ago, it has as yet shown no 

 sign of flowering, although it is the hardiest, most vigorous 

 and most rapid-growing Magnolia in the collection. 



I spent the 2d and 3d of October in company with Mr. James 

 Herbert Veitch and Mr. Tokubuchi, an accomplished Japa- 

 nese botanist, on Mount Hakkoda, an extinct volcano 

 6,000 feet high, which rises south-east and a few miles 

 distant from Aomori, the most northern city of the main 

 island of Japan. Botanically this was one of the most in- 

 teresting excursions I made in Japan, and we were able to 

 gather the seeds of a number of plants that we did not meet 

 with elsewhere. On this mountain, in the very spot, per- 

 haps, where Maries discovered this fine tree, we found 

 Abies Mariesii covered with its large purple cones ; and on 

 the upper slopessaw thedwarf Pinuspumila, forming almost 

 impenetrable thickets five or six feet high and many acres 

 in area, and numerous alpine shrubs like Andromeda 

 nana, Gaultheria pyroloides, Epigsea Asiatica, Phyllodoce 

 taxifolia and Geum dryadoides. On this mountam, too, we 

 established the most northern recorded station in Asia of the 

 Hemlock (Tsuga diversifolia) ; and near the base Ilex cre- 

 nata, Ilex Sugeroki, a handsome evergreen species with 

 bright red fruit, the dwarf Ilex Integra, van leucoclada, and 

 Daphniphyllum humile were very common ; and here we 

 were fortunate in finding good fruit and ripe seeds of Mag- 

 nolia salicifolia, of which a figure from a drawing made by 

 Mr. Faxon is published on page 67 of this issue. 



On Mount Hakkoda Magnolia salicifolia is a common 

 plant between 2,000 and 3,000 feet above the sea-level. As 

 it appears here it is a slender tree fifteen or twenty feet 

 high, with stems three or four inches thick and covered 

 with pale smoath bark, and sometimes solitary, or more 

 commonly in clusters of three or four. The branch- 

 lets are slender, light green at first, like those of Magnolia 

 glauca, later growing darker, and in their third year dark 

 reddish brown. The leaves are ovate, acute, gradually nar- 

 rowed, or rarely rounded at the base, contracted into long 

 slender points and sometimes slightly falcate at the apex ; 

 they are thin, light green on the upper andsilvery white on 

 the lower surface, quite glabrous at maturity, five or six 

 inches long, an inch and a half to two inches broad, and 

 are borne on slender petioles half an inch in length. When 

 bruised they are more fragrant than those of any species of 

 Magnolia I am acquainted with, exhaling a delicious odor 

 of anise-seed. The winter flower-bud is two-thirds of an 

 inch long, rather obtuse, and protected by a thick coat of 

 yellow-white hairs. The flowers of this tree are not known 

 to botanists, but from the size and character of the winter- 

 bud they are probably of good size and produced in early 

 spring before the appearance of the leaves. The fruit is 

 slender, flesh-color, an inch and a half to two inches long 

 and half an inch broad. 



Magnolia salicifolia * "rows on Mount Hakkoda in low 



♦Magnolia salicifolia, Maximowicz, /I/<V. Z>/d/. , viii., 509. Fi'ancliet & Savatier, 

 Enu}n. PL Jap., i., 16. 



Buereeria (''.) salicifolia, Siebold &Zuccaiini, Fl. Jajt. Fain. Nat., i., 187. Miquel, 

 Prol. Fl. Jap., 144. 



wet situations, generally near streams, and is evidently a 

 moisture-loving plant. Later I found a single small plant 

 of this species near the town of Fukishima, on the hills 

 which rise above the valley of the Kisogawa, not far from 

 the base of Mount Ontake, in central Japan. 



Magnolia salicifolia is new to cultivation, and we were 

 fortunate in obtaining a good supply of seeds, by means of 

 which, it is to be hoped, this interesting tree will soon 

 appear in gardens. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



ANEW edition, the third, of Mr. William Robinson's 

 book, entitled The English Flower-garden, has just 

 appeared. The first edition of this work was published in 

 1883; a second appeared in 1889, when I briefly pointed 

 out its character and merits in Garden and Forest in 1889 

 (vol. II., p. 243), but this last edition contains so much that 

 is fresh, and the book generally is so greatly improved, that 

 American horticulturists may like to hear of it again. 



Mr. Robinson is an eminent authority on English gar- 

 den-making ; indeed, he ma}'- be called the champion of 

 that school of landscape-gardeners known as the purely 

 natural or anti-formal school. He knows what he wants in 

 the garden, and in his writings he fights lustily for it. "We 

 shall never settle the most trifling question by the stu- 

 pid saying that it is 'a matter of taste.' If the reader will 

 come with me through these early chapters I may convince 

 him that flower-gardening is 'a matter of reason.' I do 

 not want him to think as I do without considering the mat- 

 ter for himself. The laws of all true art can only be based 

 on the eternal laws of nature." By the term, flower-gar- 

 den, Mr. Robinson really means every department of open- 

 air gardening, save that of fruit and vegetable culture, and 

 his book contains descriptions and pictures of almost every 

 kind of ornamental plant or tree which bethinks deserving 

 of a place in an English garden. It also contains chapters 

 on garden-design, including a vigorous protest against for- 

 mality and bedding, which, he says, the artist hates and 

 cannot help hating. "This dislike is only natural and right, 

 since from most flower-gardens the possibility of any beau- 

 tiful result is shut out. . . . Why is the cottage-garden 

 often a picture, and the gentleman's garden near wholly 

 shut out of the realm of art — a thing which an artist can- 

 not long look at.? It is the absence of pretentious 'plan ' 

 in the cottage-garden which lets the flowers tell their own 

 tale; the simple walks going where they are wanted; 

 flowers not set in patterns ; the walls and porch alive with 

 flowers. Can the gentleman's garden, too, be a picture.? 

 Certainly ; and the greater the breadth and means the bet- 

 ter the picture should be. But never, if "our formal 'deco- 

 rative ' style of design is kept to. Reform must come by 

 letting Nature take her just place in the garden." 



There is reason enough in this, but 1 am afraid many 

 people who love gardening and have some pretensions to 

 taste, too, would be unhappy in the kind of garden that 

 Mr. Robinson would insist on. A garden should be a re- 

 flection of its owner's character and feeling, just as his 

 house is. Some men are satisfied to pay a decorator or an 

 artist to arrange their places after the most approved styles. 

 But the man lives his own life, sets his own house in order 

 to his own peculiar liking, and, if he has a garden, he will 

 do that also. There is likely to be as much affectation in 

 a good deal of what is called the "natural" style of gar- 

 dening as in the "artificial" or formal. Mr. Robinson 

 would " Whistlerise" garden-making. I do not wish to do 

 more than simply to defend those who believe in making 

 their gardens to please themselves. Even Mr. Robinson 

 can tolerate the formal garden when it is old. 



The first two hundred pages of the book are devoted to 

 a consideration of Design, the Wild Garden, Borders, Beds 

 and Groups, Special Culture, Alpine and Rock Gardens, 

 Trees and Shrubs, Aquatic and Bog Plants, Beauty of Form, 



