March 22, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



133 



many sorts of shrubs and flowering plants may be set. Over 

 the porch and roof Rose-vines will bloom the year through. 

 Inside the house there need be no expense for lath and plas- 

 ter. Muslin, made especially for this purpose, and costing but 

 three cents a yard, may be tacked to the walls, making a good 

 surface for wall-paper. 



The illustration on the opposite page shows a cosy and com- 

 fortable dwelling, and the Prune and Cherry-orchards of afarmer 

 in the northern part of California. The house costless than $150 

 as it stands. A part is built of matched boards and a portion of 

 it is constructed of what is called " rustic " — redwood boards, a 

 foot wide, beveled at one edge so that they lap each other like 

 clapboards. The house, the barns and the windmill were 

 whitewashed at a cost of less than two dollars for lime. Dwell- 

 ings of this character are a striking contrast to the uncouth 

 houses of logs and turf which were the habitations of early 

 settlers on the farm-lands of the middle-west. 



Hamburgh, Conn. TllODias Holmes. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



AciDANTHERA (EQUiNOCTiALis. — This is a iiew introduction 

 of considerable interest, botanically, and a likely plant for 

 the garden. It is described by Baker in his Handbook of 

 IridecB, as having a lax spike of white flowers, with a slen- 

 der tube five and a half inches long and lanceolate segments 

 one and a half inches long, spotted with red at the throat. 

 It was known to Herbert, whose drawing of the flowers is 

 in Lindleys Herbarium. The corm and leaves were un- 

 known. The species is a native of Sierra Leone, and Mr. 

 Scott Elliot, when on a botanical visit to that country a 

 year ago, saw it on the Sugar-loaf Mountain, where speci- 

 mens, including good corms, have since been collected 

 and forwarded to Kevi' by Captain Donovan. The corms 

 are two inches in diameter, with brown gladiolus-like 

 tunics ; the leaves are stout, as in G. brenchleyensis, and 

 the stem, including the spike, is thick, erect and over a 

 yard high. We look forward to the flowering of this plant 

 with great expectations. The only other species of Aci- 

 danthera known to me is A. bicolor, an Abyssinian plant, 

 of which a figure and interesting particulars were published 

 in Garden and Forest, vol. i., pp. 486 and 487. The dis- 

 tribution of this genus in Africa is remarkable, thirteen 

 species being natives of Cape Colony, two of Abyssinia, 

 one of Sierra Leone and two of Zanzibar and Kilimanjaro. 

 A. oequinoctialis comes from a high elevation and will 

 probably prove as hardy as A. bicolor. Last year plants 

 in flower of this species were exhibited from Kevv, and they 

 excited bulb-growers generally, who were quite unac- 

 quainted with the plant. Many applications for it have 

 since been made to Kew, whose stock,- by the w;ay, origi- 

 nally came from Professor Sargent. Until the picture 

 and account of this plant appeared in Garden and Forest, 

 its beauty was not known here. 



Chionoscilla Alleni is the accepted name for a natural 

 hybrid between Chionodoxa Luciliae and Scilla bifolia, 

 which was first noticed several years ago by Mr. J. Allen, 

 of Shepton Mallet, growing in his garden among Scilla 

 bifolia. Seeing that both parents occur wild together and 

 that they are evidently closely related, the origin of the 

 hybrid is not surprising. Mr. Allen has just sent flowers 

 of it to Kew. They are very similar to the Scilla in gen- 

 eral effect and color, but they certainly combine the char- 

 acters of both genera. Mr. Allen wrote of this plant in 

 i8qi, in The Garden, as follows : " For the last four or five 

 years I have had natural hybrids between Chionodoxa and 

 Scilla bifolia come up in my garden. Some of the earlier 

 plants have now become strong and give good trusses of 

 flowers, but I am sorry to say they show little inclination 

 to multiply, and so far I have only the original bulbs. The 

 flowers are mostly self-colored, although a few are lighter 

 toward the centre. While showing their origin most 

 plainly they are very distinct from both parents, and th« 

 flowers are bright and attractive and they look you straight 

 in the face. Most of them have pale yellow anthers, adding 

 much to their beauty. The first year the flowers are small, 



usually about the size of the Scilla, and it is not till the 

 third or fourth year that they show their true character. I 

 have flowered a few seedlings of the second generation, 

 and I think they will show improvement on the first break. 

 One of these has given a flower with a white centre." The 

 most conspicuous difference between the Scilla and the 

 Chionodoxa is that the flowers of the former have the seg- 

 ments divided to the base, radiating star-like, and purplish 

 anthers standing clear of each other, whereas in the Chi- 

 onodoxa the segments are united at the base, forming a 

 distinct tube half an inch long, and the yellow anthers are 

 close together, hiding the stigma. The hybrid has a short 

 tube, and the anthers in their pose are intermediate between 

 the two parents. I think we may look upon Mr. Allen's 

 interesting find as proof of the generic oneness of Scilla 

 bifolia and Chionodoxa, whatever other Scillas may be. 

 The fact of the hybrid reproducing itself from seeds is in 

 itself most interesting, even if we admit the close relation- 

 ship of the parents. I am not aware of another case of a 

 hybrid reproducing itself true from seeds. 



Scilla bifolia is one of the most charming of hardy early 

 spring-flowering plants. We grow it largely at Kew, 

 patches of it in the wild-garden, in beds as a carpet to 

 Roses, etc., and in tufts in the rock-garden being beautiful 

 in February and March. It is also pretty in combination 

 with tufts of the Snowflake (Leucojum vernum), a delight- 

 ful picture at the present time in the rock-garden. Winter 

 Aconite and Snowdrop are the first heralds of spring among 

 the small plants. After them come in quick succession the 

 elegant Snowflakes, Chionodoxa, Scilla and the Hepatica 

 Anemones. A. angulosa is a beautiful plant all through 

 March, its handsome lobed reniform leaves and bright 

 blue starry flowers two inches across forming a true alpine 

 picture against a gray boulder in the rock-garden. The 

 same plant occurs again in quantity as a carpet to a bed of 

 Brier Roses, and it is included among the choice spring 

 flowers for cultivation in pots to decorate the greenhouse. 

 The varieties of A. Hepatica, of which there are now some 

 superb colors, are grown in a bay in the rock-garden, and 

 are a source of great delight to the many visitors who know 

 only the old Hepatica. 



Eranthis Cilicica. — Growers of that most delightful of 

 early spring-flowering plants, the winter Aconite (E. hye- 

 malis), will welcome this second species, which appeared 

 for the first time in cultivation a year ago at Kew, and has 

 lately been distributed among English horticulturists by 

 Mr. Whittall, of Smyrna. According to Mr. Baker, who no- 

 tices it this week in the Gardeners' Chronicle, where the 

 flower is flgured, it difters from E. hyemalis in having 

 shorter anthers and six sepals nearly half an inch broad ; 

 it also has a smaller and more deeply incised involucre 

 with narrower lobes. It does not flower till the middle of 

 February, M^hereas E. hyemalis is often in full bloom a 

 month earlier. The new species may also be recognized 

 when growing by its red-brown stems. We grow the 

 winter Aconite very largely at Kew both on the lawns and 

 scattered among the plants on the rockery, as well as in 

 beds among Roses, etc. 



Rhododendron Dauricum. — This is the most attractive 

 shrub in flower out-of-doors at the present time, bushes of 

 it five feet high and a yard through being smothered with 

 clusters of rosy mauve flowers. It is very hardy, and it 

 flowers even in bad weather in February and March. Even 

 superior to it is the hybrid raised between it and R. cilia- 

 turn by Davis, of Ormskirk, and named by them R. prsecox. 

 I question if there is a more charming spring-flowering 

 shrub known than this, but it is not at all abundant in cul- 

 tivation, notwithstanding the fact of its having been raised 

 and sent out over thirty years ago. It is certainly a plant 

 of exceptional merit. There are several varieties of it, one 

 of which, called Rubrum, we use for forcing for the conser- 

 vatory. There is no more useful hardy Rhododendron. 



Dai'hne Mkzereum. — A letter devoted to spring-flowering 

 plants must contain a word about this, albeit I have more 

 than once noted its beauty in the garden at this time of 



