244 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 276. 



ered spikes, the flowers being an inch long and colored 

 mauve-purple. Whatever their potentiality may be I am 

 afraid the hybrids themselves, as represented by what I 

 saw of them, are not likely to become very popular in the 

 garden. I believe that in the recently introduced G. oppo- 

 sitiflorus the breeders of Gladioli have a valuable plant. 

 At Kew it is now growing vigorously, and its short, broad, 

 dark green leaves — their singular arrangement upon the 

 stem, together with the height to which its stout branching 

 spike ultimately attains and the handsome character of the 

 flowers — constitute an altogether new departure in Glad- 

 ioli. Last winter we tried to cross this species with others, 

 but the time of year vv^as against success. 



DiSA Kewense. — This is a new hybrid which has been 

 raised at Kew from D. grandiflora and D. tripetaloides. It 

 is now in flower and is decidedly prett)''- The leaves, scape 

 and general look of the plant are like those of the hybrid 

 D. Veitchii, the parents of which are D. grandiflora and 

 D. racemosa, but the flow^ers of D. Kewense are smaller, be- 

 ing one and one-half inches across. The lateral sepals are one 

 inch long, ovate, slightly recurved and colored rich rose ; the 

 posterior sepal is hooded, as in D grandiflora, three-fourths 

 of an inch in diameter and colored rosy lavender, with red 

 spots; the lip is yellow inside, with transverse lines and 

 spots of crimson. The scape is eighteen inches high and 

 bears six flowers. The seeds were sown in November, 

 1891, so that this plant is only eighteen months old. There 

 are numerous other plants of the same age, but only one 

 has flowered. 



The Weather. — We have at last come to the end of a 

 long spell of dry, sunny, warm weather such as has not be- 

 fore been experienced in spring in this country by any 

 living man. From the first week in March to the third 

 week in May we have had bright sunshine almost daily, 

 comparatively little night frost, and, save a shower or two 

 toward the end of April, no rain. The effect of this weather 

 has been to make trees and shrubs flower earlier and with 

 much more profusion than I have ever seen. Herbaceous 

 plants also have flowered well where it has been possible 

 to supply them with water, although the dryness of the at- 

 mosphere and bright light have made their flow^ers fade 

 quickly. The reports of the setting of fruit-trees in all 

 parts of the country are most satisfactory. If the summer 

 weather proves correspondingly favorable the harvest of 

 fruit and agricultural produce must be most prolific. Sur- 

 face-rooting plants have suffered much from drought, but 

 those whose roots were down deep in the soil have done 

 exceptionally well. Established conifers have grown won- 

 derfully, but those transplanted in spring have suffered ter- 

 ribly. On the other hand, all the trees transplanted last 

 autumn have shown little or no signs of suffering. Indoors 

 the plants are very forward and promising, but the drought 

 and warmth appear to have favored such pests as aphis, 

 thrips and red-spider so much that it has been difficult to 

 keep them under. The effect of the drought on the hay 

 crop is such as is likely to produce a hay famine here. 



London. }y^ WatSOTl. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Bismarckia nobilis. * 



BISM ARCKI A is a monotypic genus of Palms, very nearly 

 related to Borassus and Hyphoene. It is a native of 

 Madagascar, where it was discovered by Hildebrandt, the 

 German traveler, in 1879, and named by him and Wend- 

 land in compliment to Prince Bismarck. According to its 

 discoverer, it grows in groves on the river Beturea, in west 

 Madagascar, along with the "Sata" (Hyphoene coriacea), 

 and forms a tree two hundred feet high, with a gigantic 

 crow^n of palmate leaves, the stalks of which are streaked 

 with white. The fruit, which is borne in large, drooping 

 bunches, is dark brown, plum-like, globose, one and one- 

 half inches in diameter, with a thin outer shell and a fibrous 



inner shell, enclosing a roundish-ribbed seed an inch in 

 diameter, reticulated like a walnut and ruminated as in the 

 nutmeg. 



Hildebrandt brought home one hundred good seeds of 

 this Palm and deposited them at the Berlin Botanic Gar- 

 dens, where, in 1881, seventy seedlings were raised. The 

 plant represented in the illustration (see p. 246) is one of 

 these seedlings, which was presented to Kew in 1882, and 

 which is now a handsome young specimen a yard high and 

 four feet in diameter. It has fourteen leaves, the largest 

 with a petiole eighteen inches long, channeled, rounded 

 below, smooth, finely serrated along the two sharp ridges 

 and thinly clothed with small tufts of fibrous scales. The 

 blade is nearly three feet across, rigid, and is divided into 

 twenty segments, each a foot long, nearly two inches wide, 

 with a blunt bifid apex, r At the base of each split in the 

 blade is a curled thread-like filament a foot long. The 

 whole plant is colored bluish green and is a strikingly 

 handsome Palm. 



In habit the Bismarckia resembles Hyphoene Thebaica, 

 of which there are healthy young examples at Kew, but 

 the latter has broad hooked spines along the edges of the 

 petiole. Examples of Hyphoene, Borassus and Bis- 

 marckia are cultivated in the same house at Kew, and of 

 the three the Bismarckia is by far the most satisfactory, 

 growing quicker and looking better at all times than either 

 of the others. 



Hildebrandt visited Madagascar a second time, chiefly 

 to obtain complete material and pictures of this Palm, 

 which he declared to be fully worthy to bear the name of 

 the great German Chancellor, but he caught fever in the 

 interior and died on the coast. 



I believe that of the seventy plants of Bismarckia raised 

 at Berlin in 1881, very few remain. Messrs. Linden offered 

 plants of it in 1884 at ^5 each, and Messrs. Makoy & Co., 

 of Liege, have plants of it now. It is a Palm of very noble 

 aspect, even when young. From the description of large 

 examples of it I should say it will be not unlike the great 

 Fan Palm of Bermuda, Sabal Blackburniana, of which there 

 is a noble specimen in the Palm-house at Kew, and which, 

 by the way, is supposed to be exactly one hundred years 

 old, having been brought to England by Admiral Bligh in 



1793- 



London. 



W. Walson. 



* Boi. Zezt., 1881, p. 93. 



Cultural Department. 



Spring Protection. 



WE are too apt to rejoice over our fruit prospects in March, 

 for the real danger comes after that. Not zero weather, 

 but warm weather, is to be dreaded. A cool April usually 

 precedes a good fruit year, but a warm showery April starts the 

 buds, and frost comes in the middle of May, which reduces, if 

 it does not ruin, our crop. Such dangers are over now, but 

 while the conditions of spring are still in our memory it is a 

 good time to remind fruit-growers that it is advisable to keep 

 back the early growth of fruit-trees as long as possible. Snow 

 is often a good mulch, and when piled up and packed down 

 along currant-rows or Cherry-trees or Grape-vines or Quince- 

 bushes it is always helpful. But, as a rule, it is possible to ob- 

 tain for our more delicate trees some long litter or coarse 

 manure, which should be spread about them in the winter on 

 the top of the snow. Coal-ashes is admirable for the same 

 purpose, and beneficial for equalizing the temperature about 

 the roots of the trees at any season. I use all that I make at 

 home and all that I can secure from my neighbors, and find 

 that a bushel or two about a Pear-tree will always prove valua- 

 ble, perhaps because it prevents sudden changes of tempera- 

 ture about the roots, and such changes are injurious in sum- 

 mer as well as in spring. 



Another danger to be dreaded is lack of pollination of the 

 flowers. Twice during six years past we have lost our fruit 

 crop in central New York after abundant blossoming because 

 of the cold and chilly rains, which prevented the flying of in- 

 sects and failed to give the proper conditions for pollination. 

 A few orchards of low trees in which domestic bees were kept 

 afforded full crops, but the bees could not get beyond the con- 

 fines of their home groves. My trees are trees of open growth, 

 separated by large intervals ; my nearest neighbor has low- 



