l62 



Garden and Forest. 



[NtnUBER 2tiSi 



way to the door, a straight avenue, symmetrically bordered 

 by trees, might often advantageously replace the road 

 which now winds about on a level soil simply because 

 some one has thought curves always essential, and which, 

 therefore, cuts up the space without the excuse of either in- 

 creased usefulness or increased beauty. Such an avenue 

 would imply, of course, some measure of formality in its 

 immediate neighborhood ; but farther away the design 

 might gradually pass into an informal plantation of trees 

 and shrubs for encircling the boundaries and masking all 

 but the most desirable points of outlook from the house. 



Botanical Notes from Texas. — VI. 



GONZALES, which is the base of these notes, is a pleasant 

 little city of south-central Texas, the capital of a county of the 

 same name. Its existence runs back into the days when the 

 state was under Mexican occupancy and ownership. The flow 

 of the Guadalupe River, which is near the city, is here rapid, 

 affording good water-power. Gonzales is about half a degree 

 north of the twenty-ninth parallel, and about the same distance 

 west of the ninety-seventh meridian. 



Sesbania Cavanillesii — the Coffee Bush, or Rattle Weed — 

 keeps in remembrance the name of Antoine Cavanilles, the 

 Spanish priest and botanist, who studied the plants of southern 

 North America about one hundred years ago. This shrub 

 does not extend far nortliward, but is very common in the 

 coast country of Texas. Usually a low shrub, it sometimes 

 attains a height of fifteen feet, and, growing with a single 

 stem, is entitled to rank as a tree. It affects damp soils, and 

 often covers low prairies with a miniature forest. When 

 growing in water the immersed part of its trunk becomes en- 

 larged and spongy. The rather large flowers are yellow, with 

 a purplish tinge. These are succeeded by pendent four-angled 

 pods, which persist through the winter. The peas have 

 been used as a substitute for coffee, and hence its common 

 names. 



Sesbania vesicaria, a common southern species, is found 

 near Gonzales, extending in Texas to the valley of the Red 

 River at Denison. It is a late annual, blossoming in July, and 

 bearing short, sharply pointed pods which open at the apex. 

 The gap discloses the persistent white lining which envelops 

 the seeds, usually two in number, and gave to the species its 

 earlier name of Glottidium. If I have seen the flowers of this 

 species they are not properly described in the books, which 

 make them yellow and the size of those of our other species. 

 What I have taken to be the flowers of this species are pur- 

 plish and not more than one-half as large as those of its 

 congeners. S. macrocarpa is also an annual, very strong and 

 tall-growing, becoming ten to fifteen feet high. Its flowers are 

 yellow. The curved pods are sometimes a foot long. It is 

 common throughout the coast region of the Gulf states, ex- 

 tending northward in the Indian territory to the thirty-sixth 

 meridian, or near it. 



Oxalis dichondraefoha is a common Oxalis of south-western 

 Texas, with yellow flowers. Its specific name reveals nothing 

 to the student who has not seen a Dichondra. It would have 

 been better to have had all plants so described that they might 

 have been known of themselves and without reference to 

 other genera or species. But this good rule of Linnaeus is 

 commonly broken, until now a large proportion of plant-names 

 express nothing of the characters of the plants which they 

 represent. Dichondra repens is also common around the 

 city, and it leaves with those of our Oxalis. 



Prunus Caroliniana — the Wild Peach, or Mock Orange — is 

 one of the best-known and handsomest of southern ornamen- 

 tal trees. It is native to all the coast states from North Caro- 

 lina to this meridian, or near it. It is common as a street and 

 lawn tree in most of Texas, and its shining evergreen leaves 

 render it conspicuous and easily recognized. The small white 

 flowers are borne in stout, erect racemes from the axils of the 

 persistent leaves, and so on the wood of the previous year. 

 They begin to appear in the extreme south as early as Feb- 

 ruary. The cherries, for it is a Cherry, and not a Peach, are 

 produced in such abundance as often to bend the branches on 

 which they grow. They are black when ripe, larger than those 

 of any other of our wild cherries, somewhat bitter, rather dry 

 and persist until after the next anthesis. A tree with evergreen 

 leaves, loaded with a profusion of white flowers and bending 

 beneath the weight of the previous year's black fruit, presents 

 a unique and very handsome appearance. It seems that the 

 leaves of this species have been justly accused of causing the 

 death, of cattle, when eaten by them. The species pleads in 

 extenuation of its guilt that the cows, when they were hun- 



gry, ate too many of its wilted leaves. A cold-water infusion 

 of the bark of this tree is used in intermittent fevers, and as a 

 tonic some people prefer a whisky infusion of the cherries 

 themselves. 



Xanthoxylum Fagara, the Prickly Ash, is much smaller 

 than either of its more northern and eastern congeners, which 

 it otherwise closely resembles. The main rachis of the com- 

 pound leaf is winged between the pairs of leaflets. This 

 species is the " Correosa " of Mexicans. TheX. Clava-Herculis, 

 southern Prickly Ash, Toothache-tree, or Pepper-tree, extends 

 as far west at least as the ninety-eighth meridian. 



The handsome Clitoria Mariana, remarkable among our le- 

 guminous plants for its very large purple flowers, is common 

 as far west as the meridian of this city. Dysodia chrysanthe- 

 moides, the Foetid Marigold, or Yellow Dog Fennel, is a strong, 

 but not very ill-scented, composite, common in central Texas 

 and northward, and is moving eastward. In the fall this spe- 

 cies lengthens its rays, paints the scales of its involucre purple, 

 and makes quite a successful effort to be handsome. 



Salvia farinosa is abundant here. Its bright blue flowers 

 contrast pleasantly with its leaves, calyces and stems, which 

 are whitened by a dense hoary pubescence. Cucurbita foeti- 

 dissima is very common on the prairies from near the Gulf to 

 Nebraska. This species, too, is traveling eastward. It is 

 already in Arkansas at Texarkana, and in Missouri at Kansas 

 City. The yellow fruit is as large as a small orange. Mexicans 

 call it "Calabacilla." 



Clematis Drummondii is one of the commonest plants of 

 southern Texas. It extends northward nearly across the state 

 and far westward. It clambers over any support within its 

 reach, and when it finds no support it often spreads itself out 

 over damp places in the prairies. Our species is very 

 conspicuous in fruiting-time by the long plumose tails of 

 its carpels. The tails are often purplish, when they are 

 handsome. 



Lantana Camara, "Frutilla" of Mexicans. This southern spe- 

 cies is common in cultivation, and wild from this meridian 

 westward. It is remarkable for its strong spicy odor and for 

 the changing colors of its flowers. Dr. Havard charges this 

 species with the grave offense of poisoning sheep and cattle. 



Kansas City, Kan. £. N. Plank. 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan. — XL 



IN eastern North America the small family of the Sabi- 

 aceae has no representative, although Meliosma, which 

 is mostly a tropical and sub-tropical Asiatic genus, also oc- 

 curs in Mexico and Central America. In Japan there are 

 three species of this genus, of which only one, M. myrian- 

 tha, attains the size of a tree. This species grows some- 

 times to the height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and pro- 

 duces slender trunks and wide-spreading branches ; its 

 large thin leaves, which are sometimes eight inches long 

 and three inches broad, of a light delicate green, are its 

 chief attraction as a garden-plant, for the flowers of Meliosma 

 are minute, and the terminal panicles in which they are 

 gathered are loose and long-branched. Only a small por- 

 tion of the flowers are fertile, so that the fruit, which is a 

 small red berry-like drupe, is sparse and scattered on the 

 clusters, and not at all showy. This plant is new, I be^ 

 lieve, in cultivation, and its behavior in our climate will be 

 watched with interest. It can hardly be hoped, however, 

 that Meliosma myriantha will succeed in New England, as 

 in Japan it does not range far north, and in central Hondoj 

 where, although widely distributed, it is not common, it 

 does not rise much above two thousand five hundred feet 

 over the sea-level. 



From the Rhus family we miss in Japan the Smoke-tree 

 (Cotinus), a familiar European and western Asiatic type; 

 represented, too, in eastern America by one of the rarest. 

 and most local of all our trees. Of the true Rhuses we 

 have in eastern America a dozen species, including three 

 small trees, while in Japan there are five indigenous spe- 

 cies, and among them three which can properly be consid- 

 ered trees. The Japanese Lacquer-tree (Rhus vernicifera)^ 

 which has played a conspicuous part in the development; 

 of the mechanical arts of China and Japan, and which is 

 certainly the most valuable plant of the genus to man, is 

 not a native of Japan, where it was brought long ago from: 

 China, and although much cultivated, especially in north- 



