454 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 297. 



and its ex|)loding seed-vessels have fired their last salute to the 

 departing season. 



The trees that are the first to change color, such as the Sour 

 Gums and Sugar Maples, have already lost their brilliancy. 

 Many of them lost the greater part of their foliage on the thir- 

 teenth of this month, when a violentgale uprooted a superb Oak 

 on the premises, which measured eleven feet in circumference 

 four feet from the base, and was apparently quite sound and 

 healthy. 



The Sweet-brier, with its abundant scarlet hips and sparse 

 foliage, still green and fragrant, is one of the most beautiful 

 objects in the fading shrubbery. Not less brilliant are the 

 berries of Thumberg's Barberry, which are unusally numer- 

 ous. The branches, covered witli pink and dull red leaflets, 

 and weighed down with fruit, fairly glow in the bright sun- 

 shine. Other handsome berries, now at their best, are those 

 of Cotoneaster Simonsii, which are cherry-red, contrasting 

 prettily with the foliage, which is still a dark green. Spiraeas 

 are putting on their brilliant autumn colors, but the so-called 

 golden-leaved variety of Spiraea opulifolia has now lost all 

 tintje of yellow and is an uniform dull green. 



The beautiful Hypericum Mosserianum has been blooming 

 a second time for a fortnight past, and is still full of buds, 

 which scarcely tind warmth enough to encourage them to 

 open. The flowers, which have been already described in Gar- 

 den AND Forest, are very large, bright and showy, and are 

 fairly numerous. It is a plant for the herbaceous border rather 

 than the shrubbery proper, and contrasts well with Aster 

 oblongifolius, which is making its little corner gay with num- 

 erous bright blue blossoms. Near by the Japanese Anemone 

 is in bloom, and a few trumpet-shaped blossoms of the pretty 

 evergreen, Abelia rupestris, fill the air with delicate perfume. 

 This little shrub is hardy as far north as Philadelphia, and, 

 perhaps, it would endure a still higher latitude with a little 

 winter protection. It is quite largely planted in the public 

 grounds at Washington, and visitors always admire it. 

 Rose Brake, w. Va. Danske Dandridge. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



AT the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 £\_ Orchids and other indoor plants were numerous, the 

 best collection coming from L'Horticulture Internationale. 

 It contained exceptionally good varieties of Cattleya la- 

 biata (Warocqueana), of C. elegans, one of these called 

 Lucianii having the deepest and most brilliantly colored 

 labellum I have ever seen in this species ; and of C. Ack- 

 landioe ; a superb variety of C. maxima, named Leopoldii, 

 and remarkable for the rich maroon with golden reticula- 

 tion of its labellum ; a long four-flowered spike of the 

 tawny-colored C. Alexandrae ; a stout four-flowered scape of 

 the beautiful and majestic Cypripedium "Rothschildianum 

 and a new hybrid, called Spicero-Lowianum, combining 

 the characters of the two parents, the first-named predom- 

 inating in color and form. Cattleya Eldorado, var. Owenii, 

 which received an award of merit, is an albino with a rich 

 amethyst blotch and a yellow throat. Cochlioda vulcan- 

 iucum, var. grandiflorum, was shown with a twelve-fiow- 

 ered scape, the flowers nearly twice as large as in the 

 type- 

 Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons sent an improved form of Cypri- 

 pedium Arethurianum, called superbum ; this owed its 

 superiority in the depth of color and tinge of rose in the 

 dorsal sepal, to the fact that it was bred from the Chantini 

 variety of C. insigne Cattleya chloris ; a hybrid between 

 C. Bowringiana and C. maxima was awarded a first-class 

 certificate, and was considered to be one of the handsomest 

 of the newer hybrids, the flowers being five inches across, 

 of the color of C. Bowringiana, with the labellum of C. 

 maxima. A second hybrid Cattleya, named Pheidinse, and 

 raised from C. maxima and C. intermedia, with a good deal 

 of the characteristics of the former parent, obtained an 

 award of merit. From Messrs. F. Sander & Co. came a 

 group of Orchids, conspicuous among them being some 

 very fine varieties of Cattleya labiata, the rare Pesca- 

 torea Klabochorum, Cattleya Kranzlini, a hybrid between 

 C. elegans prasiata and C. Wagneri, an attractive plant with 

 sepals and petals, as in C. elegans, rosy-mauve, the lip 



wavy and crisp with a yellow throat and maroon blotch ; 

 Batemannia Burtii, and a group of Phalaenopsis Lowii. 

 Messrs. B. S. Williams & Son exhibited the rare Pachy- 

 stoma Thomsonianum, Dendrobium Phalaenopsis and other 

 species from tropical Australia. Messrs. Hugh Low & Co. 

 showed Vanda Kimballiana, which we owe to them, and 

 which is one of the very best of the Vandas when properly 

 grown, producing spikes nearly two feet long ; Stanhopea 

 Amesiana, a pretty white-flowered species of recent intro- 

 duction ; Dendrobium Lowii, a rather rare plant now, one 

 of the nigro-hirsute section and reputedly difficult to grow ; 

 and Masdevallia muscosa, the sensitive-lipped species. 

 Major-General Beakeley exhibited a part white-lipped va- 

 riety of Odontoglossum Uro-Skinneri, and Kewsent a new 

 hybrid Disa, named Premier, raised from D. Veitchii and 

 D. tripetaloides, a sturdy plant with a spike eighteen inches 

 high, bearing six large, bright rose-crimson flowers. It was 

 awarded a first-class certificate. 



Among the general plants the Kew exhibits ranked first 

 in interest, four of them receiving first-class certificates. 

 They were 



SoLANUM Wendlandii, of which three enormous bunches 

 of bloom were shown, and which is admitted to be one of 

 the very finest stove-climbers in cultivation. At Kew 

 there is now a plant of it trained against a rafter in a 

 warm house, and bearing a great number of large heads 

 of rich blue fiowers. It is emphatically a plant for every 

 stove. 



BoMAREA PATACOENSis (confcrta), with stems twenty feet 

 long, each terminated by a drooping cluster of rich red 

 flowers quite as large as those of Philesia, and, as there are 

 thirty or more flowers on a bunch, its beautiful effect can 

 be imagined. A strong well-established plant continues to 

 produce fiowers all the year round. 



Tecoma Smithii. — A hybrid raised in Australia a few years 

 ago from T. Capensis and T. velutina, the latter a variety of 

 T. stans. It is a first-rate greenhouse-plant, and would be 

 a glorious climber for verandas in countries where it could 

 be grown out-of-doors. At Kew it is grown on the dwarf- 

 ing system, which results in plants scarcely two feet high, 

 bearing large terminal heads of the most delightfully at- 

 tractive yellow flowers. It is a plant for the million. 



Ptychoraphis AUGUSTA. — I told your readers of the merits 

 of this Palm some months ago. It has all the grace and 

 elegance of Cocos Weddelliana, with the free growth and 

 good constitution of a common Kentia. It was introduced 

 to Kew from the Nicobar Islands last year. Other exhibits 

 from Kew were Clematis Stanleyi, which is a really pleas- 

 ing plant when planted in a sunny border in rich soil and 

 treated like Anemone Japonica, its elegant silvery foliage, 

 numerous rose-purple nodding flowers and ornamental 

 fruits being effective toward the end of summer. Kniphofia 

 modesta is a tall species introduced to Kew from Kafraria 

 a few years ago, and now established in a border. It is 

 remarkable in being white-flowered, the scapes being three 

 feet high and the leaves narrow and grass-like. A series of 

 seedlings of Streptocarpus was also shown. Messrs. Veitch 

 also showed Streptocarpus and a basket of plants in flower 

 of the dwarf blue-flowered Caryopteris mastacanthus, which 

 only just falls short of meriting a place among first-class 

 hardy shrubs ; it is not quite hardy enough for English gar- 

 dens, and the blue of its flowers is rather dull in shade. 

 Anthurium Wambeckianum, a white-spathed hybrid in the 

 way of A. ebarneum and Hasmanthus Lindeni, a pale form 

 of the variable H. multiflorus, both shown by L'Horticul- 

 ture Internationale, were awarded first-class certificates. 

 Two first-rate winter-flowering Carnations, shown by Mr. 

 J. Godfrey, Exmouth Nurseries, were awarded certificates ; 

 they were named Reginald Godfrey, a soft pink full flower, 

 with crisped petals, good in form, and very fragrant, and 

 Mary Godfrey, similar in shape to the other, but pure white ; 

 the plants were dwarf, with good grass. Nerine elegans, 

 var, alba, shown by Mr. T. Ware, Tottenham Nurseries, is 

 a white variety of the hybrid raised some years ago from 

 N. flexuosa and N. rosea : the flowers of the albino are. 



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