February 5, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



65 



a natural hybrid, but probably merely the link needed to 

 unite these two extremes under one heteromorphous species. 

 The same remark applies to the newer L. Gouldiana, which 

 connects L. autumnalis with L.furfuracea. Of course nature 

 is not concerned in making species and keeping them distinct; 

 one might easily proceed from this to argue that every genus is 

 merely one variable species of more or less range. We must 

 believe that all the species in a genus have sprung from one, 

 pretty much as all Cabbages are from Brassica oleracea and 

 all Chrysanthemums from C. morifolium (Sinense). At any 

 rate, the term natural hybrid for a plant with a fixed and distinct 

 character seems to me lame. Talk about names merely is, 

 however, an unprofitable game, for a gardener at any rate. If 

 I could have my way plant names should be fewer in number 

 and very much simpler than many of them are now. The 

 man who saddles plants with names like Damnacanthus, Cato- 

 blastus. or Sivammerdamia, is guilty of something akin to 

 felony. 



Midwinter Chrysanthemums. — These are useful, and 

 efforts are being made by the National Chrysanthemum So- 

 ciety to encourage their production and culture. A paper read 

 this week at a conference of this Society recommended the 

 following as possessing the qualities most essential, namely, 

 lateness in blooming, which must, of course, be inherent and 

 not the result of special treatment ; secondly, freeness of habit 

 and convenience of size ; and thirdly, good, well-colored, freely 

 produced flowers — Etoile du Midi, Kaempfer, M. C. Hubert, 

 Meg Merriles, Ralph Brocklebank, Countess of Lytton, Ceres, 

 Mrs. C. Carey, Ethel, Thunberg, Boule d'Or, Moonlight, Glori- 

 osum, Mrs. H. Cannell, Golden Gem, Boule de Neige, Snow- 

 drop and Mdlle. Sentir. These, according to the author of 

 the paper, do not begin to bloom before the beginning of 

 December, and they remain in beauty at least until the middle 

 of January. He also recommends the following single flow- 

 ered kinds as possessing the same qualities, namely, Magenta 

 King, Canariense, Brunette, Ellen Terry, Mrs. Killock, Monte 

 Carlo and Gus Harris. Other late flowering kinds deserving 

 of special mention are Kioto, Lord Eversley, Moonlight and 

 Maggie Mitchel. The treatment recommended for these late 

 flowering kinds by an excellent grower here is as follows : 

 Strike the cuttings in March or April, shade in hot sunny 

 weather, and half plunge the pots in ashes. Do not house 

 the plants until forced to do so by frost, and when under glass 

 keep them as cool as possible. If the flowers are not pushing 

 fast enough a little heat may be given in December. 



London. W. WatSOtl, 



Paris Letter. 



T N spite of the cloudy and disagreeable weather which has 

 ■*■ prevailed this winter in central and southern Europe, Tea 

 Roses, Narcissus and Australian Acacias from Provence are 

 sold in our streets, with Violets, also from the south, of which 

 an incalculable number of little bouquets are sold at prices 

 varying from two to five cents each. Forced Lilacs, Lilies-of- 

 the- Valley and Snowballs are the most common flowers in the 

 florists' shops. The forced Lilacs have for many years been 

 objects of considerable commercial importance in the French 

 capital, and now the cultivation of Lilies-of-the- Valley becomes 

 every year more and more extensive. The beauty of the flow- 

 ers, their durability and the delicacy of their perfume make 

 the Lily-of-the-Valley one of the favorite flowers here. The 

 roots for forcing come from Belgium. Attempts to 

 force those taken from the woods have never been very suc- 

 cessful, and it is found necessary, in order to obtain good 

 flowers, to subject the roots to preparatory cultivation in nur- 

 series. It is estimated that about 1,500,000 roots of Lily-of-the- 

 Valley are now forced every season in the neighborhood of 

 Paris, and that the average annual sales of the flowers amount 

 to half a million of francs. 



Cyclamens, different species of Erica, the Clivias, and Chi- 

 nese Primroses, Cinerarias, Hyacinths, Tulips and Epiphyl- 

 lums appear also in the windows of the florists. 



At the last meeting of the National Society of Horticulture, 

 M. J. Sallier, of Sceaux, exhibited a fine specimen of Luculia 

 gratissima. This superb shrub belongs to the Rubiacece. It is 

 a native of Nepaul, and therefore should be cultivated in the 

 cold house. The rose-carmine flowers are extremely and deli- 

 cately fragrant, and are united in great terminal corymbs. Like 

 so many other plants, Luculia gratissima was fashionable at 

 one time, and then its cultivation was abandoned without any 

 apparent reason. The world has its caprices, but it does no 

 harm to call attention from time to time to neglected plants 

 often difficult to obtain, although, fortunately, they still exist in 

 the great botanical gardens. M. Sallier exhibited also Cypri- 



pediuin ckloroneurutn, a hybrid, whose parentage is unknown. 

 It has the foliage of C. venustum, and great brilliant flowers, 

 looking as if they had been covered with a coat of varnish, 

 and C. CEnanthum, a hybrid between C. Harrisianum, crossed 

 by C. insigne Maulei. The foliage of this plant is dark green. 

 The peduncle is covered with black hairs, and bears a solitary 

 flower, whose superior sepal is greenish white, with numerous 

 violet veins, the petals and lip being vinous violet. M. Chant- 

 rier, of Bayonne, exhibited seedling Chrysanthemums ; M. 

 Driger, a Ccelogyne, introduced directly from Burmah ; Vil- 

 morin & Co., an interesting variety of Calceolaria, obtained by 

 crossing C. rugosa with a herbaceous species. This hybrid 

 has the advantage of being a perpetual bloomer. M. Baltet 

 exhibited before the Committee of Ornamental Arboriculture 

 several shrubs in fruit. The most conspicuous were Coton- 

 easter tomentosa, C. Nepalensis, C. horizontalis, Cratcegus Car- 

 rieri and C. Crus-galli, Lycium Sinense, Rhodo typos kerrioides, 

 Ligustrum Ibota, L. vulgare and Diospyros Lotus. 



Two interesting plants have recently found their way into 

 commerce here. One is the Genista Afidreana, of which Croux 

 & Sons, of Val d'Aulnay, near Sceaux, have purchased the 

 stock. This plant was found growing wild in Normandy with 

 Genista Scoparia, of which it is only a variety with red-flow- 

 ered wing-petals, which make a good contrast with the bright 

 yellow of the other parts of the flower. This plant was 

 described and figured in August, 1886, in the Revue Horticole, 

 and was exhibited in Paris last summer. The Genista Andre- 

 ana is a sand-loving plant, but it can be cultivated on clay soils 

 if it is grafted on the common Laburnum. The second new 

 shrub is Euscaphis staphyloides, introduced into commerce by 

 M. Lemoine, of Nancy. It is closely related to the Staphvlea, 

 which it much resembles in its general habit. It is a native of 

 Japan, where it is known as Gonzui, Kitsiime no tsija Cukun 

 and as Dai i noki. It is often cultivated in Japanese gardens, 

 where it grows to a height of ten or twelve feet. The small 

 greenish white flowers are produced in terminal panicles and 

 are followed by a fruit which becomes scarlet at maturity and 

 remains upon the plants until the beginning of winter like the 

 fruits of Euonymus. According to Siebold, the inner bark 

 of the roots of Euscaphis is bitter and astringent, and is used 

 by the Japanese as a remedy against dysentery. 



Paris. D. Bois. 



T 1 



Cultural Department. 



Laelia anceps. 



'HIS is undoubtedly one of the very showiest Orchids in 

 cultivation. It is exceedingly popular, very plentiful and 

 cheap, and therefore to be met with in every collection, even 

 where Orchids ^are not a specialty, but where a place is 

 retained for a few of the best cultivated varieties. The popu- 

 larity of this species is not to be wondered at, when it is con- 

 sidered how valuable its large, handsome flowers are in 

 enlivening the somewhat dreary aspect which naturallv pre- 

 sents itself in our plant-houses during the sombre months of 

 November, December and January — the season when Lcelia 

 anceps and its many beautiful varieties are always to be found 

 in bloom. 



The typical L. anceps is distinguished by having ovoid-fusi- 

 form, more or less angled pseudo-bulbs, which are from 

 three to six inches long, and closely arranged on the rhizome. 

 A single oblong-lanceolate, very leathery leaf, six to eight 

 inches long, is borne on the summit of each pseudo-bulb, 

 whence also emerges the peduncle. This latter is one and 

 a half to three feet long, having at each node a more or less 

 silvery-looking, keeled and sheathing bract, the tip of which 

 just passes the base of the bract above and opposite to it. 

 From two to five flowers are borne on each peduncle, and these, 

 if spread out, would measure between five and six inches 

 across. The sepals and petals are deep rose, the former be- 

 ing lanceolate-acute, the latter much broader and elliptic- 

 lanceolate. A peculiar feature of the sepals — also to be 

 observed in Lalia pumila — is that the upper one slants back 

 without being recurved, and the two lower ones slant forward 

 on each side of the lip. The side lobes of the latter organ are 

 folded over the column, forming a tube. They are pale rose 

 outside, creamy white inside, with interrupted lines of dark 

 purple, which vanish in the magenta-purple of the recurved 

 anterior portions. " The middle lobe is reflexed at the tip, and 

 of a deep magenta-purple, which presents a vivid contrast to 

 the elevated disc, which is of the brightest yellow and bordered 

 in front with white. The column is white behind, tinged with 

 green and streaked with purple, and green in front, spotted in 

 the centre and lined with purple on each side. 



