484 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 300. 



served the birds carefully, the answer is not difficult, for he 

 will have noticed that the bird before beginning work 

 makes a careful survey of the tree, hopping from place 

 to place on the trunk, and listening intently. It is 

 really by the sense of hearing, and by this only, that the 

 insect larvec are located, and this does not even require a 

 very well-developed sense of hearing, because insect larvce 

 burrowing in wood make a noise quite perceptible to the 

 human ear at some little distance if the surroundings are 

 quiet. The bird is, therefore, able to locate a burrowing 

 larva with very great accuracy, and it is rarely, indeed, that 

 it becomes necessary to make more than one hole to get 



' Rulgers College. John B. Smith. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Fraxinus rhyncophylla. 



THIS fine Ash-tree, which is a native of northern China 

 and the adjacent parts of Mongolia, where it was dis- 

 covered by the Abbe David, is distinguished from other 

 Ash-trees by its winter buds, which are globose, half an 

 inch in diameter, with broad scales covered with a coat of 

 thick rufous tomentum. The outer scales, which are smaller 

 than the others, do not, as is the case with most Ash- 

 trees, cover the bud which is enclosed by the second 

 pair of scales; and on the terminal bud these outer 

 scales are narrowed into thickened reflexed tips, which 

 stand out from it like ears. These great buds, which are 

 collected at the ends of branches, give these a peculiar 

 aspect in winter and render it easy at that season to distin- 

 guish this species from other Ash-trees (see page 485). 



Fraxinus rhyncophylla* is a vigorous tree, with stout pale 

 orange-colored glabrous branchlets, which are marked by 

 occasional small darker-colored lenticels. The leaves, 

 which are seven or eight inches long, are composed of five 

 leaflets ; these are oval or obovate, gradually narrowed at 

 the apex into short or elongated points, wedge-shaped or 

 rounded at the base, remotely and obscurely crenulate- 

 serrate above the middle, thick and firm, dark green and 

 somewhat lustrous on the upper surface, paler on the lower, 

 and glabrous, with the exception of a fringe of pale hairs 

 along the lower ends of the lower side of the midribs and 

 on the petiolules. The terminal leaflet is three or four 

 inches long and an inch and a half to two inches and a 

 half wide, and is borne on a petiolule nearly an 

 inch in length ; the lateral leaflets are smaller and 

 shorter-stalked, those of the lower pair being not more 

 than half the size of those of the upper pair. The tfowers 

 are produced in rather compact panicles tvi'o or three inches 

 long and broad, and are sometimes sterile by the abortion 

 of the ovary and sometimes perfect, the two kinds being 

 mixed together in the same cluster. The keys are narrow, 

 about an inch and a half long, contracted at the apex, 

 which is mostly acute or is sometimes rounded or slightly 

 emarginate. 



In the Arnold Arboretum Fraxinus rhyncophylla was 

 raised from seed sent in 1881 from Pekin by Dr. Bret- 

 schneider, who speaks of it as a large tree. It is one of 

 the hardiest and most vigorous Ash-trees in the collection; 

 it grows rapidly and promises to attain a large size. During 

 the last ten years the trees have flowered and produced 

 fertile fruit. 



In the United States Fraxinus rhyncophylla will not. 



perhaps, be more valuable as an ornamental tree than some 

 of our native species, but the trees of China are still so 

 imperfectly known that the introduction and successful 

 cultivation of any of them in arboreta is important and 

 interesting, as it is hopeless to try to know trees even 

 superficially except bv the study of living individuals. 



c. s. s. 



* Fraxinus rhyncophylla, Hance. Jour. Bot.. vii., 164(1869). — ¥tanc\\et, PL David, 

 i , 203, t. 17 ; Mem. Soc. Sc. Nat. Cherbourg, xxiv . 2^6. 



Fraxinus Chinensis, var. rhyncophylla, Forbes & Hemsley, Jotir. Linn. Soc, xxvi. , 

 86(1889). 



Hance describes the branches as obtusely quadrangular, while they are terete in 

 our cultivated plants, which do not show any trace of the thick clusters of rufous 

 hairs which he describes at the end of the branchlets and the insertion of the 

 leaves and panicles, although such tufts of hairs are very conspicuous at the 

 base of the young leaflets of Fraxinus Mandshurica. The figure in the Plants' 

 Davidiana represents very well our plant, even to the buds, although these are 

 not described. 



Krom Fraxinus Chinensis of middle China, to which this species has sometimes 

 been referred as a variety, it differs in the smaller number of leaflets, which in that 

 species are narrower and more sharply and conspicuously toothed. The winter 

 buds I have not seen. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



BuLBOPHYLLUM Ericssoni. — This, which is described by 

 Dr. F. Kranzlin as "by far the most striking new Orchid 

 received for a long time past," has lately been introduced 

 by Messrs. F. Sander & Co. It has long creeping rhizomes, 

 slender, erect pseudo-bulbs four inches long, each bearing 

 a leaf "much resembling a medium-sized Stanhopea." The 

 fliovver-scape is slender, with the flowers arranged in an 

 umbel forming a circle, in this instance a large one, each 

 flower measuring eight inches in diameter. "Imagine a 

 group of from nine to twelve flowers of a large Chimoeroid 

 Masdevallia, and you will get an idea of this Bulbophyl- 

 lum." The dorsal sepal is lanceolate, the lateral sepals 

 oblong, with long twisted tails ; the petals are shorter than 

 the sepals tailed like them, and the lip is heart-shaped, of a 

 spongy texture at the disk. The color of the flowers is 

 yellowish-white, heavily spotted with dark brown, the tip 

 being red. I have seen dried flowers of this plant, and they 

 bore all the characters of a large-flowered, handsome 

 Orchid. 



CiRRHOPETALUM ORNATissiMUM. — This is a bcautiful little 

 Indian Orchid, second only in size and interest to the new 

 C. Collettii, to which it is closely allied. The former was 

 introduced from Sikkim in 1882, when it was named by 

 Reichenbach. It first flowered at Kew in 1887, and a pic- 

 ture of it was published in the Botanical Magazine, t. 7229. 

 A plant of it was exhibited in flower by Sir Trevor Law- 

 rence at the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 who awarded it a first-class certificate. It has four-angled 

 pseudo-bulbs springing from long creeping rhizomes, a 

 leathery leaf four to six inches long, and a graceful scape 

 eight to twelve inches long bearing an umbel of flowers, 

 each four inches long, including the tails of the broad, cu- 

 riously twisted sepals, which are yellow, lined with dots of 

 purple; the short petals are each tipped with a brush of 

 red paleae ; the labellum is small, tongue-like and colored 

 purple-black. Cirrhopetalums are finding general favor 

 with English cultivators, being easy to grow in a stove, 

 free-flowering and exceptionalh'- interesting in flower- 

 structure. 



Paphinia grandiflora, generally known as P. grandis, is 

 the largest-flowered and handsomest of a small genus of 

 Orchids, closely allied to Lycaste; indeed, it is included in 

 that genus by Bentham & Hooker. Although introduced 

 from Brazil and flowered in England ten years ago, this 

 species has remained rare until recently, when Messrs. 

 Linden, of Brussels, introduced it in quantity and sent it in 

 flower to the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society- 

 last week. Its flowers are six inches in diameter, the seg- 

 ments being ovate-lanceolate and colored yellow, with 

 blotches and bands of deep brown-purple ; the lip is nar- 

 row, fleshy and crowned with a tuft of whitish shaggy 

 hairs. The size of the flower is out of all proportion to the 

 size of the plant, which is scarcely a foot high and has egg- 

 shaped pseudo-bulbs, bearing each one or two thin lanceo- 

 late green leaves. Paphinias are as refractory as Phalse- 

 nopsis, and are, therefore, plants only for the patient and 

 watchful cultivator possessed of a moist house. They re- 

 quire a decided dry rest after growth. 



Cattleya Alexandra. — This is undoubtedly a distinct 

 species of Cattleya, and while some of the forms of it are 

 dull and unattractive in color, others possess all the quali- 

 ties of a first-rate garden Orchid. I have lately seen a num- ij 

 ber of plants of it in flower in the Brussels establishment of l 



