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December 13, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



513 



houses are ugly ; many more are inappropriate, few among 

 those built of the more perishable materials are kept in per- 

 fect repair, and their outer borders are seldom tended prop- 

 erly. On an open country-road a property-owner may be 

 excused if he keeps his wall in good repair and its inner 

 borders rightly planted or cleaned, while he lets stones and 

 weeds and heaps of dirt accumulate outside. But, 011 a 

 street or avenue like those of Newport, perfect neatness is as 

 imperatively required outside a fence as within it. Uncer- 

 tain or divided responsibility is often responsible for neglect 

 in this particular — the property-owner thinks that it is the 

 town's business to keep the street-borders neat, the town 

 officials think that it is his business, or are neglectful of 

 their duties. But it is hard to understand how any per- 

 son able to own a fine house and grounds in a place like 

 Newport can be content to do no more than he must in the 

 care of the high-road; for a ragged, unkempt bit of high- 

 road adjoining his wall is not only ugly in itself and a pub- 

 lic disgrace, but specially injurious to the effect of his wall 

 and his property as seen beyond it. 



Unimproved pieces of property in Newport and similar 

 places are often encircled, even when they lie on the most 

 frequented streets, by mere rough fences of rails or boards. 

 It need hardly be said that this is inexcusable. A property- 

 owner who thinks only of his own pocket — who protects 

 his land against marauders in the cheapest way he can, nui. 

 caring whether or no his fence injures the effect of neigh- 

 boring places, hurts the general perspective of the street, 

 and is an eyesore to every passer-by — such a property- 

 owner has no real love of beauty, and is a bad citizen 

 besides. 



Need we explain that to keep fences neat and in good 

 order should not always mean to keep them primly clean 

 and free from all fringing and climbing plants .'' Appropri- 

 ateness is synonymous with good sense and good taste in 

 this as in every point. The degree of neatness required 

 on a suburban avenue is greater than that required on a 

 modest village street, much greater than that required along 

 a rural higway. But, however freely and variously Nature 

 may be allowed to drape and buttress a fence, the fence it- 

 self should be kept in good repair. Gaping brick-work, 

 tottering stones, broken palings, fallen rails or swaying 

 posts can never be pleasing to the eye, except, of course, 

 where man's work has patently gone to ruin and been 

 abandoned to Nature, who can turn confessed decay into 

 picturesqueness. A broken fence, with the aid of which 

 Nature has created a luxuriant hedge-row, or a fallen stone- 

 wall over which she has woven a garment of wild Roses, 

 Grape-vines and Smilax, is a charming thing to see ; but 

 only where the soil itself has been abandoned to her free 

 devices — never amid the surroundings of an inhabited 

 house or encircling fields still cultivated to supply the wants 

 of man. Here, also. Nature may sometimes be allowed a 

 pretty free hand ; but man's supremacy should still be 

 manifest ; and this supremacy does not manifest itself fa- 

 vorably if signs of neglect and decay are apparent in any 

 piece of his handiwork. 



Botanical Notes from Texas. — XIV. 



'T'HE city of Corpus Christi stands near the north-west cor- 

 -•■ ner of a bay of the same name, which is an inlet of the 

 Gulf of Mexico. The Texas coast here turns to the south and 

 holds the waters of the Gulf from extending much farther 

 westward; in fact, the mouth of the Rio Grande River is a 

 little east of Corpus Christi. The city is old, though it does 

 not contain over five or six thousand inhabitants. It was the 

 base of General Taylor's military operations during the Mex- 

 ican War, and the earthworks thrown up by his troops, just 

 east of the city, are still plainly to be seen. 



A portion of the city is built upon the beach and not much 

 above its level, and occasionally this part of the town has been 

 invaded by immense tidal waves. Ttie plateau upon which 

 most of the city is built is thirty or forty feet above the bay 

 and commands a view of the entire bay and of the reefs or 

 islands which separate it from the Gulf. Corpus Christi and 



Laredo are on nearly the same [)arallcl, and the ninety-seventh 

 meridian is just by the city. 



The Nueces River brings down the waters collected hy tfie 

 Blanco, Guadalupe, San Antonio, Medina, Frio and Leona 

 Rivers, and forms a large marsh and bay of its own, uniting 

 with the waters of Corpus Christi Bay a little east of the city. 



Among the coast plants CEnothera is well represented here, 

 as along most of the Texas coast, by the prostrate, handsome, 

 strong-growing CE. Drummondii. Its thickened leaves are 

 whitened by a dense pubescence. Just as night closes in, its 

 handsome large yellow flowers open and lie like stars upon 

 the sand, where not a blossom was to be seen a few minutes 

 before. The visitor who rises early will also see them in his 

 morning walk, but they are not so handsome then as they are 

 at nightfall. 



There are two or three species of Salicornia on the salt- 

 marshes here. S. herbacea is a conmion inhabitant of most 

 of our entire ocean shore. It is also occasionally foimd in 

 salt-marshes of the interior. Its rounded succulent stems, 

 already salted, are often pickled in vinegar and eaten as a salad 

 or relish. Formerly, if not now, it grew in abundance on the 

 salt-marshes around Syracuse, New York, and was collected 

 and sold from house to house under the name of Samphire. 

 Though an Old World species, it was not the Samphire of 

 Shakespeare : " Half-way down hangs one that gathers Sam- 

 phire, dreadful trade !" — a reference to Crithmum maritimum, 

 an umbelliferous plant. 



A remarkable plant of the Gulf beaches is Lycium Carolini- 

 anum, found commonly creeping in damp sands. It has 

 rounded fieshy leaves, purplish tiowers and bright red berries. 

 The fruit is edible, and is gathered and eaten uncooked, or is 

 used by coast people for pies, tarts and jellies. In one museum 

 of Texas productions I saw a jar of it, labeled "Texas Cran- 

 berries." Statice Limonium, handsome in appearance, and 

 useful as a remedial agent, is very abundant on the salty soils, 

 painting the otherwise naked sand a lilac hue. Borrichia fru- 

 tescens is common along the entire coast. Bearing it com- 

 pany here, though hardly recognizable, dressed in more 

 numerous, thickened leaves, is Aplopappus rubiginosus, or 

 a form of it. Even the handsome genus Gaillardia has set out 

 to make a maritime species of its own out of a form of G. pul- 

 chella, and has already thickened its leaves, changed the color 

 of its rays, and otherwise disguised its appearance. 



In addition to the numerous genera of plants whose species 

 are always found on the shores of bodies of salt-water or in the 

 vicinity of salt-springs and salt-marshes, and which every- 

 where reveal the character of the soil in which they grow, 

 most large genera whose species usually grow inland have 

 also developed species which have located near the sea, and 

 have become changed by their surroundings, until in their 

 general structure and appearance they closely resemble their 

 neighbors which naturally belong to the coast. It is interest- 

 ing to study how a genus of many species has sent them out 

 to represent the type in so many modifications of size, form 

 and mode of living. They may be found large and small, tall 

 and short, smooth and hairy, armed and imarmed, handsome 

 and plain, erect and prostiate, aromatic and latid, fragrant and 

 odorless, climbing or creeping, with leaves of all forms, flow- 

 ers of all hues, and fruits and seeds of all sizes, forms and fla- 

 vors consistent with its own idea of life. The thick-leaved 

 Cissus incisa was doubtless born and bred near salt-water, but 

 through long periods of time it has learned to adapt itself to 

 somewhat different conditions, though even now it seems to 

 be better pleased when living on the coast. 



The commonly cultivated Tamarix Gallica shows its origin 

 at once as it approaches the sea. A slight shrub in northern 

 gardens, hardly able to stand alone, it becomes along thecoast 

 a tree with a short spongy trunk sometimes two feet in diame- 

 ter. It is often planted in coast cities as a street-tree. Here it 

 is oftener seen in yards, with its long lithe branches, trained 

 over bowers or merely sustained by poles, forming dense 

 shades. It is generally known as Coast Cedar or Salt Cedar. 



I concluded my botanical studies at Corpus Christi by taking 

 a long stroll down the beach of the bay, returning upon the 

 bluffs. Rarely on the sand I met the more southern crucifer, 

 a Synthiplis which is slowly extending up the bay. Near by a 

 Cakile was growing, probably C. maritima. It was the only in- 

 dividual of that species which I have seen along the Texas 

 coast. At least three species of Atriplex are common on the 

 salt-marshes. In drier and less saline places the common 

 coast plant Sesuvium portulacastrimi makes itself at home. 

 There are nearly erect as well as trailing forms of it. Its rose- 

 colored calycine leaves add beauty as well as variety to the 

 coast flora. Curly Mezquit, the well-known Buffalo-grass of 

 the plains, grows within reach of tide- water. 



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