28 



Garden and Forest. 



[January 15, 1890, 



stone spire ; then a fine sixteenth-century house, where, over 

 the high court-yard wall, showed a mass of deep green foli- 

 age and a huge blazing pink Oleander ; then a beautiful gate- 

 way of Rococo iron, and then an inn where the whole facade 

 was hidden up to the second story by three huge specimens 

 of Euonymus Japonica, growing in tubs and loaded with 

 creamy blossoms. No plant is more common in southern 

 France than this, and none is more beautiful unless it be the 

 Oleander. We do not know in the least what an Oleander is, 

 seeing it of small size, with sparse foliage and scattered 

 flowers. One must see it where it is at home out-of-doors — 

 often a veritable tree in dimensions and covered so close 

 with blossoms that it looks like a huge bouquet. 



It was nearly four when we reached Pont St. Esprit, with its 

 ancient bridge dating from the latter half of the thirteenth 

 century. It is 2,500 feet long and rests on nineteen great round 

 arches and three smaller ones, and but for certain alterations 

 made in iron at one end, looks just as it did 600 years ago. 



Passing on, the shores stretched out in broad plains, and to 

 the south-east appeared a lofty mountain, almost as white as 

 snow to the top. Soon a single nearer peak came into view, 

 with a jagged long hill beneath it, every point accentuated by 

 a ruin. Wide amphitheatres of hills succeeded, and then a 

 great long cliff of slanting strata, behind which still rose the 

 far-off snowy mount. A castle of the same yellow as the cliff 

 crowned its summit, and the river swept around its base straight 

 toward the east, and skirted another similar cliff bearing 

 another castle. These are the hills of Mondragon and Mornas, 

 and the white mountain is Mont Ventoux which one still sees 

 from Avignon. Nothing more splendid could be fancied than 

 the color here, or than the bold yet harmonious forms of the 

 hills, as steep and naked as walls in their upper portions and 

 sloping and green below. The winding of the river shows 

 them in ever-varying perspectives and each new point of view 

 we think the very best. A little below come flat lands for a 

 change, but with mighty ranges of mountain beyond them. 

 At St. Etienne-des-Sorts we found a nest of yellow houses 

 with a tall-bodied church bearing a tiny square tower. The 

 naked soil was almost orange-colored here, and we knew we 

 were in the midi indeed, seeing our first Olive-trees. At a 

 quarter past five we passed two great towers, one round and 

 one square, frowning at each other from isolated rocks across 

 the stream, and, like the rocks, streaked yellow and gray. 

 Looking back we still saw the great white mass of Mont Ven- 

 toux, and looking ahead we gazed now south, now east, now 

 west, as the river wound about a succession of broad islands 

 and under the edges of projecting rocks. It was a mighty 

 stream by this time, having been fed by many tributaries since 

 we started, and broadening out around a succession of large 

 islands, yet seeming to flow more swiftly than ever. If every 

 foot of the way had seemed a new delight, how shall I describe 

 the approach to Avignon ? The hills break away into more 

 distant amphitheatres. The stream goes east, then turns 

 south, and over its two arms and the green island between 

 them we see afar off a high rock crowned by a diadem of 

 massive golden towers. At this distance, against a sky 

 already reddening for the sunset, it looked like a vision of the 

 New Jerusalem. As we got nearer it was impossible to seize 

 all the features that made up the splendid landscape. There 

 was Avignon itself, lordly on the left bank, and, almost as 

 lordly, the towers and walls of Villeneuve-les-Avignon on the 

 right. Between them were the two wide arms of the rushing 

 pale green stream, with a large bright green island between 

 them, cut by endless rows of pollard Mulberries. The shores 

 were fringed on the right with Poplar groves, while on the 

 left rose groups of tall, black Cypresses. A great stone bridge 

 crossed the prospect in the distance, and nearer were the re- 

 maining arches of that famous ancient bridge where, says the 

 nursery rhyme, all the world has danced. Around all stood 

 yellow peaks topped by picturesque ruins, and, still further 

 back, the exquisite blue lines of mountain. It was all beauty, 

 all grandeur, all romance, condensed into a single picture, 

 and as the boat swept up to the quai, the western sky burned 

 with a roseate splendor that was reflected from the water in 

 great flashes and turned the yellow castle walls to pink. 



The charm did not fade when we saw the inside of Avignon 

 and the panorama from its towers, and from those of Ville- 

 neuve across the Rhone. And when to this was added a visit 

 to Petrarch's Vaucluse — so often described, so wholly unde- 

 scribable — it seemed as though, could one see but one beau- 

 tiful place on earth, Avignon would be the place to choose. 

 Yet one may stay there weeks and never really see it, for its 

 very best shows only when one comes upon it in a summer 

 sunset by the great water highway. 



New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Phalsenopsis, F. L. Ames. 



IT can be said of very few plants that an individual rep- 

 resents all there is of a particular form or variety or 

 hybrid which, not being reproducible from its own seed, 

 must perish with the individual, and so disappear unless 

 the conditions which produced it happen to produce 

 another individual similar to the first. Such unique 

 plants are always interesting in themselves, and the in- 

 terest increases from a horticultural point of view when 

 they have qualities which make them valuable for their 

 beauty apart from their rarity. Such a plant is the Phalse- 

 nopsis, of which a figure appears on page 29 of this issue. 

 A few roots and three small leaves are all there is to rep- 

 resent this plant, which is a hybrid raised in England by 

 Mr. Seden, the successful Orchid-hybridizer in the Veitchian 

 Nurseries. It was bred from P. amabilis, a plant known in 

 gardens often as P. grandiflora, fertilized with the pollen 

 of P. intermedia, itself a hybrid between P. rosea and P. 

 Aphrodite. The seed which resulted from this cross was 

 sown in 1882 ; one plant appeared, and five years later (a 

 wonderfully short time for a seedling Orchid to grow to 

 the flowering state) this plant flowered. It was exhibited 

 at a meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, and was 

 described by Mr. Rolfe in the Gardeners' Chronicle of Feb- 

 ruary 1 8th, 1888, in which a figure of the flower was pub- 

 lished, the hybrid being named for Mr. Frederick L. Ames, 

 of North Easton, Massachusetts, to whose collection it was 

 added in the spring of the same year. It has just flowered 

 for the second time at North Easton, and although the plant 

 is in excellent health, it carries only three leaves and is so 

 small that the immediate prospect of increasing it by 

 division is not good. Four flowers were open at the 

 same time this year on the long stout scape ; they were 

 fully three inches across, with pure white sepals and petals. 

 The lip, almost identical in shape with that of P. amabilis, 

 is marked with bright red-purple on a ground of yellow or 

 yellow-white, the crest being yellow striped with purple. 

 As Mr. Rolfe has pointed out, the flower ' ' is remarkably 

 intermediate between its two parents, and makes a decided 

 step backward to the tendrillea section of the genus." We 

 are indebted to Mr. Ames for the opportunity of figuring 

 this beautiful and interesting plant. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 The New Plants of 1889.— II. 



Stove and Greenhouse Plants. — The most remarkable 

 plant in this division is the gigantic Aroid, Amorphophallus 

 Titanum, which, although introduced to Kew ten years ago, 

 did not flower in Europe until June of this year. A descrip- 

 tion of this extraordinary plant has already been published in 

 Garden and Forest. I may observe that the plant at Kew is 

 apparently in good health, and beyond losing eight pounds in 

 weight through flowering, the enormous tuber was not other- 

 wise affected. A. Eichleri, a small species from the River 

 Congo, has also flowered this year at Kew. It is an interest- 

 ing and ornamental plant of its kind, but it emits a horrible 

 stench when in flower. Arisama Wrayii, a new species from 

 Perak, with the habit of A. nepenthoides and a spathe six inches 

 long, colored white and emerald green, is a pleasing addition 

 to the cultivated plants of this genus. Arisaemas are as easily 

 grown as tuberous Begonias, and the flowers of most of them 

 are exceptionally quaint and attractive. Carludovica palmi- 

 folia is a provisional name for an elegant leaved plant, cer- 

 tainly a Carludovica, which Mr. B. S. Williams has introduced 

 this year. C. rotundifolia, a near ally of the well known C. 

 pahnata, from which Panama hats are made, is another addi- 

 tion to ornamental foliage plants, and it is also attractive in its 

 Medusa-like inflorescence and the rich colors of its fruits. It 

 has been in cultivation at Kew some years, but has only re- 

 cently been definitely named and figured in the Botanical Mag- 

 azine. Mr. Bull offers under the name of Encephalartos rega- 

 lis, from Zululand, a Cycad which resembles E. Hildebrandtii. 

 Kew has distributed this year the only noteworthy Palm, namely, 

 Catoblastus prmnorsus, from Venezuela, with compact habit 



