IOO 



Garden and Forest. 



[February 26, 1890 



apples offered by the ordinary dealer in winter. Two useful 

 publications devoted to this subject are the cheap edition of 

 Mr. Barron's "Conference Report on Apples," price one and 

 sixpence, a most comprehensive, reliable and well arranged 

 descriptive catalogue, with comments by the author, who 

 is perhaps the first authority on fruits in England. The 

 other publication is Mr. J. Wright's prize essay on " How to 

 Make Fruit-growing Pay." This work was written for the 

 Fruiterers' Company, and is a marvelous shilling's worth of 

 practical information by an eminently practical authority on 

 hardy English fruit. 



Grafting. — Mr. Parsons' trenchant remarks on this subject 

 are an overwhelming testimony against those ill-advised 

 authorities who set out to convince English gardeners that 

 they were being defrauded by the nurserymen who sold them 

 grafted fruit-trees instead of own-rooted ones. It was difficult 

 to believe that those who condemned grafting of all kinds as a 

 makeshift and a fraud were in earnest. The crusade against 

 grafting in England collapsed suddenly. Probably the Fruit 

 Conferences, held recently, carried conviction to the minds of 

 the few who appear to have thought that they had but to cry 

 out against grafting to get it condemned. 



Odontoglossums. — I learn that the cultivation of these 

 plants in America is not so satisfactory as it is in England, 

 owing to the excessiye heat of your summers. Have these 

 Orchids been tried in a cool, shaded position out-of-doors dur- 

 ing summer ? In Germany this treatment is practiced for cool 

 Orchids with considerable success. Most Odontoglossums 

 grow well in the open air during summer in England, and 

 Mr. Sander has for several years practiced a method for the 

 cultivation of these plants which may lead to their being 

 grown in beds outside pretty much as we grow the Andean 

 Begonias now, namely, plant them outside for the summer, 

 lifting and resting them in-doors in winter. The method re- 

 ferred to is simply planting Odontoglossums in beds of peat in 

 low span-roofed houses and treating them as if they were as 

 terrestrial as Disas. The bed is formed by two walls support- 

 ing slabs of stone, and upon these is placed a layer of drainage, 

 broken soft brick being preferred. About three inches of 

 good rich peat, not fibre merely, but pure peat, is placed upon 

 the drainage, and in this the Odontoglossums are planted in 

 rows. Small plants with pseudo-bulbs an inch or so in length 

 produce the first year under this treatment pseudo-bulbs as 

 large and almost as plump as bantams' eggs. Out of what 

 was originally 1 believe merely a makeshift plan for overcoming 

 pressure of work, Mr. Sander has developed what was de- 

 scribed recently by a very eminent botanist as the most aston- 

 ishing of recent revelations in horticulture. It may, as I have 

 already said, bring us to something not far from " bedding 

 out " for epiphytal Orchids. 



Phcenix Roebelini. — This is a very distinct and pretty little 

 Palm lately introduced from Siam and now in the possession of 

 Messrs. Sander & Co. There is no Phcenix like it, the near- 

 est being P. rupicola, the most elegant of the species hitherto 

 known. By the side of this, however, P. Roebelini is the veri- 

 est pigmy, its stems scarcely thicker than a walking stick and 

 almost smooth, and its leaves a foot or so in length, regularly 

 pinnate, the pinna; as narrow and elegant as those of Cocos 

 Weddelliana, shining dark green and plume-like. I have not 

 seen so charming a Palm for a long time. Messrs. Sander 

 hold the entire stock of it. Although introduced only last year, 

 the plants are in good condition and well furnished with 

 healthy foliage. As a table plant this Phcenix is certain to be- 

 come a general favorite. 



Eranthemum aurantiacum. — The most attractive stove 

 plant in flower at Kew now is this dwarf species of Eranthe- 

 mum. The tallest of the plants is not a foot high, and theyare 

 all clothed with gray-green foliage, which forms a suitable foil 

 to the bright scarlet color of the flowers. These are in erect 

 terminal spikes, and whilst the open flowers are scarlet, the 

 buds are bright yellow. A group at Kew is composed of some 

 twenty plants of the Eranthemum, arranged under graceful 

 Palms, etc., with a few plants of the rich indigo-blue-berried 

 Psychotria cyanococca, whose bunches of fruit suggest minia- 

 ture bunches of currant-grapes. Both these plants are raised 

 annually from seeds, this method being preferable to cuttings. 

 Epacris. — The value of these plants in winter is appreciated 

 here in all good gardens. A selection of the best varieties is 

 grown for the Kew conservatory, and these, when in flower, 

 are greatly admired. The plants are cut down hard in spring, 

 started in a little warmth, then repotted and allowed to get well 

 rooted in the new soil before being exposed to the outside air. 

 With this treatment they make new shoots from a foot to 

 eighteen inches long, and clothed their whole length with 

 flowers. White, pink, crimson and variegated are the colors 



of the flowers. The best varieties are the Hyacinthiflora 

 kinds, and those represented by E. miniata. Unless they are 

 cut well back and started in a brisk, moist heat in early spring, 

 Epacris do not make the growth long enough and ripen it in 

 sufficient time to ensure a good winter display. 



London. 



W. Watson. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Rosa foliolosa. 



THE Prairie Rose of the south-west is one of the more 

 distinctly marked species of the genus as represented 

 in America. In habit it is low, rarely more than a foot in 

 height, spreading by running root-stocks and forming 

 clumps. The stems are slender and leafy, often unarmed ; 

 the spines, when present, mostly slender and straight, or 

 nearly so. The leaves are nearly or quite glabrous, pale 

 green and shining above, of seven to eleven small, narrow 

 leaflets, which are acute at both ends, or only acutish at 

 the apex, and simply toothed. The narrow stipules are 

 usually glandular-ciliate, and the stalk of the leaf prickly. 

 The rather large flowers are bright pink and very fragrant, 

 almost always solitary and on quite short pedicels. The 

 depressed-globose hip and the sepals are glandular-hispid, 

 and the outer sepals narrowly lobed. 



This little Rose was first collected by Thomas Nuttall 

 during his early visit to Arkansas in 1818-20, but was not 

 published until twenty years afterward, when it was 

 described in Torrey and Gray's "Flora of North America" 

 (vol. i., p. 460). Meantime it had been found by Berlandier 

 and Drummond in Texas, and by other collectors. It ap- 

 pears to be confined to the prairie region of Arkansas, the 

 Indian Territory, and northern and central Texas. A 

 nearly allied species (R. Mexicand), found by Dr. Palmer 

 in the mountains of Coahuila, Mexico, is the only species 

 known to be native in Mexico proper. 



The accompanying figure, on page 101, was drawn by 

 Mr. Faxon from a specimen cultivated at the Arnold 

 Arboretum. 3". W. 



Cultural Department 

 An Analysis of Grafting. 



T T is well nigh incredible that any doubt can exist as to the 

 ■*• general efficiency or necessity of grafting ; and yet the 

 discussions which have run through various journals, mostly 

 foreign, during the last twelvemonth, indicate that the entire 

 utility of the practice is questioned. A careful attention to 

 the discussion reveals the fact that much of it is random, and 

 that generalizations are too often made from local or insuffi- 

 cient facts. We often find that the truth is overlooked or 

 obscured because of the lack of clear-cut definitions and 

 analyses ; such is particularly well illustrated in the perennial 

 discussions of "acclimation," concerning which no one knows 

 what his neighbor is talking about. 



The practice of grafting— if we use the word to include both 

 grafting and budding, after the manner of the French greffage 

 — is so universally and unhesitatingly accepted by nursery- 

 men and growers that no fear of its abandonment need be 

 entertained, no matter what authority may condemn it. But 

 we do need to know more about it, for ever since the 

 absurdities of Pliny and Columella were recorded, it has 

 been a fertile field of misconception and quackery. I do not 

 wish to offer a defense of the practice ; none is necessary. 

 But a simple outline of reasons and results, with no attempt 

 to multiply examples beyond the point of mere illustration, 

 may serve a purpose. 



It may be said that there are three leading reasons for 

 grafting : 



I. To perpetuate a variety. II. To increase ease and speed 

 of propagation. III. To produce some radical change or pro- 

 mote some adaptation in the stock or cion. 



The first two statements need no elaboration here, but the 

 third is moot ground, and demands subdivision. These 

 secondary results of grafting, as they may be called, or 

 reciprocal influences of stock and cion, fall readily under 

 the following heads : 



1. Grafting may modify the stature of the plant. It is 

 the commonest means of dwarfing plants. We graft the 



