August 9, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



333 



ton, where he began the botanical excursions and collections that 

 have forever linked his name with North American botany. 

 In 1844 he met Prince Carl Von Braunfels, leader and patron 

 of the first German colony to Texas, and founder of the city 

 which bears his name and commemorates his success in in- 

 troducing German industry and thrift into the young republic. 

 Lindheimer joined the colony and came to New Braunfels in 



1845. 



The infant colony flourished greatly. In 1852 Lindheimer 

 was elected editor of the Neu Braimfelser Zeitung, the first 

 established, and now the oldest, German newspaper in the state 

 of Texas. He resigned his position in 1871, and passed the 

 remaining years of his life quietly and pleasantly on his little 

 farm in the outskirts of the city, and near his beloved Guada- 

 lupe, along whose banks he had so often wandered, and the 

 plants of whose valley he had studied so carefully and so well. 

 He died on the second day of December, 1879. 



Lindheimer was a brave man, almost an athlete in strength, 

 yet mild and gende in his ways, and free and simple in his 

 habits and mode of living. During the prevalence of the 

 cholera in 1849 a German family came to New Braunfels, and 

 two of its members were taken with the disease. In their pov- 

 erty and distress, Lindheimer settled them on his own lot, and 

 cared for them with a brother's affection, at the cost, however, 

 of the lives of two of his own children and his own narrow 

 escape from death. 



Lindheimer left little but what he had added to the world's 

 stock of knowledge and goodness, and his mortal remains lie 

 in an unmarked grave in the city cemetery, on the banks 

 of the Guadalupe. It is a pity that not even a stone marks 

 his grave. But many species of American plants bear his 

 name, and the monotypic genus, Lindheimera, will keep his 

 memory bright in the hearts of those who care to know that 

 such a man lived and labored for science. It is well that Lind- 

 heimera Texana grows abundantly around the home of its 

 discoverer. 



The rather rare and local Schrankia platycarpa I first met at 

 New Braunfels. It may easily be recognized by its flattened 

 pods. I saw it later at San Antonio. The handsome little Gilia 

 rigidula grows commonly in rocky places throughout central 

 Texas. It is much more luxuriant here than farther north. 



Sophora secundiflora is very abundant around San Antonio, 

 readily becoming a handsome small tree. An individual tree 

 near the river above the springs is at least thirty feet tall, and 

 nearly a foot in diameter. San Antonians call the species 

 Laurel. They have even named one of the beautiful suburbs 

 of their handsome city " Laurel Heights." A form of this spe- 

 cies is occasionally met with lighter-colored flowers and bright 

 orange seeds. 



Nyctagineus capitatus begins to appear at San Antonio. Its 

 clusters of large bright scarlet flowers, with long exserted sta- 

 mens, are very handsome to the eye, but their odor is disgust- 

 ing. Many eastern species of plants that have ventured as far 

 south-west as San Antonio, do not seem to care to go farther 

 in that direction. I have not seen Callicarpa Americana, 

 Sophora affinis, Passiflora incarnata and several others west of 

 the San Antonio valley. 



Kansas City, Kansas. E. N. Plank. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Polygonum Sachalinense. — This plant has lately been 

 brought into prominent notice by several English journals 

 which recommend it as a good fodder-plant of exceptional 

 value in dry seasons in temperate countries. Inquiries 

 from correspondents interested in fodder-plants have also 

 reached Kevv with regard to this Polygonum. It is a coarse- 

 growing herbaceous perennial, which we use as a lawn 

 specimen, and also in the wild garden, where, in the 

 poorest soil, impoverished, too, by the roots of large trees, 

 it produces annual succulent shoots eight feet long, clothed 

 with green ovate leaves a foot or so long. The root-stock 

 spreads rapidly by means of horizontal stems or rhizomes, 

 which grow very quickly in the manner of some of the 

 Bamboos. No plant could be more easily grown, and as 

 every bit of its root-stock will soon grow into a new plant 

 it is as easily multiplied as the weediest of "knot-grasses." 

 Should it prove of real value as a fodder-plant, its recom- 

 mendation to farmers and others cannot be too warmly 

 endorsed, but in the event of its proving of no economic 

 value its extensive propagation would be regretted. In a 



communication to the Gardeners' Chronicle, by the well- 

 known French horticulturist, Monsieur Charles Baltet, 

 whose book, on the art of grafting and budding, is known 

 to every gardener, this Polygonum is recommended as a 

 fodder-plant in consequence of experiments made by Mon- 

 sieur Doumet-Adanson, communicated to the Societe Na- 

 tionale d'Agriculture of France, by Monsieur Duchartre. 

 The stems are cut when they are three or four feet high, 

 and again the same year, should they be strong enough, 

 while well-established stools are said to give three or four 

 crops a year. An acre is said to yield from ninety-five to 

 one hundred and ninety tons (per annum .?). Monsieur 

 Doumet-Adanson says that cattle are extremely fond of it. 

 The plant is a native of the island ofSaghalin, between Japan 

 and Siberia, where it was discovered by Maximo wicz and in- 

 troduced into Moscow, and from thence into France in 1869 

 by Monsieur Ed. Andre. Buckwheat, Polygonum Fago- 

 pyrum, the staple food of the inhabitants of central Asia, 

 is also said to be a native of the same part of the world. 

 I know that pigs will greedily eat the stems of several of 

 the Polygonums found wild in Britain. 



DoRYANTHES GuiLFOYLEi. — Under this name a plant which 

 flowered in the Botanical Garden at Melbourne, is figured 

 and described by Mr. Guilfoyle in The Garde?i for July 2 2d. 

 Hitherto we have known only two species of Doryanthes, 

 D. Palmeri, figured in the Bolanical Magazine, t. 6665, from 

 a plant flowered at Kew in 1882, and D. excelsa, figured in 

 the Botanical Magazine, t. 1685, and tirst flowered in Eng- 

 land eighty years ago. According to Mr. Guilfoyle, how- 

 ever, two other species have been found ; he says : " There 

 are now four species of Doryanthes known, namely : D. 

 excelsa, the well-known Spear Lily of New South Wales, 

 D. Palmeri, D. Larkini and this new one which has just 

 been named D. Guilfoylei by the Government Botanist of 

 Queensland, Mr. F. M. Bailey, F. L. S. . . . D. Palmeri was 

 hitherto considered to be the most gigantic and showy 

 Amaryllid discovered in Australia, but it is eclipsed in size 

 and beauty by this later discovery. The leaves are nine 

 feet long, over eight inches wide and of a brilliant green. 

 From the base of the flower-stalk (which is fifteen inches in 

 circumference) to the apex of the inflorescence is sixteen 

 feet two inches. Of this seven feet eight inches is a com- 

 pound spike of rich crimson Amaryllis-like flowers, each 

 four inches in length. The plant was discovered by a 

 brother of mine in the Upper Bardekin Ranges, North 

 Queensland." In my opinion this plant may be described 

 as a large variety of D. Palmeri. The Doryanthes are ex- 

 ceedingly handsome foliage-plants, not unlike some of the 

 the Furcroeas, their long strap-shaped, glossy green elegant 

 leaves forming a magnificent rosette, which is at least as 

 ornamental as the finest of the Agaves. They are nearly, 

 if not quite, as hardy as A. Americana, and would, there- 

 fore, be of exceptional value in countries where they can be 

 grown permanently outside. At Kew they are grown in 

 the Winter Garden. The late Duke of Marlborough had 

 several grand specimens, which were placed outside on the 

 lawns at Blenheim in summer. I cannot distinguish D. 

 excelsa from D. Palmeri when not in flower. The former 

 has a pole-like flower-stem twenty feet long, bearing a ter- 

 minal head of red flowers and bracts ; the latter has a stem 

 about fifteen feet long, the upper five feet being a thyrsoid 

 panicle of crimson flowers. Both species die after flowering, 

 and they produce a large number of bulbilloe after or along 

 with the flowers, as in Furcroea. 



Calandrinia umbellata is well known in England as a 

 charming little summer-flowering perennial for the rock- 

 garden ; it is also treated as an annual, the seeds being 

 sown in pots or in the border in autumn or in February to 

 flower in the summer following. This year we have grown 

 a number of it in pots, and they are now a great attraction 

 in the small house devoted to alpine plants. Each plant is 

 in a four-inch pot, and forms a compact little specimen six 

 inches high and about a foot through, and bears ten or fif- 

 teen compound umbels of bell-shaped erect flowers half an 

 inch across, and colored brilliant magenta. No plant could 



