164 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 2, 1890. 



presence of coloring matter in some cases and on its absence 

 in others. The form of the flower and of the foliage in many 

 of these Chrysanthemum-sports is in no wise different from 

 that of the parent plant. This is only an illustration of the 

 fact that all degrees of combination or of dissociation, as the 

 case may be, may be expected to occur. 



Is there any commingling of the elements of stock and of 

 scion in the case of grafts ? Botanists and gardeners, almost 

 without exception, have asserted that there is none. Place 

 on a sheet of wet blotting paper, which may represent the 

 stock, a drier piece of the same substance, which may repre- 

 sent the graft, and there will be a passage of the fluid from 

 the lower to the upper paper, but there will be no mixture of 

 the constituents of the two. 



We have always wondered if there were no reciprocal in- 

 fluence of stock on scion, why grafting is practiced at all, 

 because we cannot understand the acknowledged advantages 

 of the practice except upon the supposition of some modifica- 

 tion being exerted. Gardeners triumphantly, as they were 

 quite justified in doing, pointed to the millions upon millions 

 of cases where no such modifications are visible. Botanists 

 pointed to the closed cells from whose cavities only the thin- 

 nest of liquids could exude and permeate through the walls 

 of adjoining cells. This was before the days of "continuity 

 of protoplasm," as above mentioned. Now that we know 

 that not only water, but protoplasm itself, may, under certain 

 circumstances, pass from cell to cell, the difficulties in the 

 way of conceiving that any influence could be exerted on the 

 scion by the stock, or vice versa, are very materially lessened, 

 if not entirely removed. 



But before the time we speak of, there were some alleged 

 facts which, provided the history given were true, could only 

 be explained on the supposition of the commingling of 

 elements by grafting and subsequent separation. In other 

 words, the possibility of graft-hybridization must be assumed. 

 Whether it has been proved is another matter. 



One of the strongest cases in its favor that we know of 

 is that of the famous Adams' Laburnum Cylisus Adami. 

 We cannot go into detail as to the history of this extraordi- 

 nary tree. It must suffice to say, that it is stated to have 

 originated from the implantation of a bud of the dwarf, 

 shrubby, lilac-flowered Cytisus purpureus onto the common 

 Laburnum. Be this as it may, we have in our gardens 

 on this side of the Atlantic trees which every year astonish 

 the beholder by producing, together with the foliage and 

 flowers of the Laburnum, tufts of Cytisus purpureus and all 

 sorts of intermediate conditions between the two. If the 

 stock exerted no influence on the scion, the buds should be 

 pure Cytisus purpureus and pure C. Laburmun, without any 

 intermediate forms. It would lead me too far to give other 

 illustrations of the production of shoots of an intermediate 

 character between stock and scion. Many such are on record, 

 and many have come under my own notice. It must suffice 

 for me to show that whilst we may, with a very great amount 

 of probability, attribute the existence of some sports to the 

 **un-mixing" of elements blended by means of cross-fertiliza- 

 tion, whether between species (hybrids), or between varieties 

 (cross-breds). We may, likewise, but with a less degree of 

 probability, attribute the existence of others to a similar dis- 

 sociation in the case of grafted plants. 



Obviously the latter cases must be much less numerous 

 than the former, and are purely artificial productions, not 

 likely to occur in Nature. 



Other assigned causes appear to me to pertain rather to 

 variation in general than to that limited, localized form of it 

 which is here considered as bud-variation, and may be here 

 passed with the mere mention. Maxwell T. Masters, 



London. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Syringa Pekinensis. 



THIS plant (Fig. 30) flowered in the Arnold Arboretum 

 and in one or two other gardens near Boston last 

 June for the first time, having been raised from seed sent 

 from Pekin by Dr. Bretschneider. 



Syringa Pekinensis is a wide-spreading shrub with slen- 

 der branches covered with light yellow-brown bark, marked 

 with minute wart-like excrescences, and rather stout winter- 

 buds, with broadly ovate, blunt, membranaceous, chestnut- 

 brown scales, with scarious, ciliolate margins. The terminal 

 bud, as is the case always with the common Lilac, does not 

 develop. The bark of the principal stems is thin and light yel- 



low, separating into delicate flakes, and is not unlike that of 

 a young Yellow Birch-tree. The leaves are ovate or deltoid, 

 obtuse or acuminate, rounded at the base or gradually con- 

 tracted into a slender-channeled petiole. They are dark 

 green, opaque on the upper, and rather paler on the lower 

 surface. The inflorescence is a short, compact thyrsus, 

 only four to six inches long, surrounded and much covered 

 by the shoots of the year, which complete their growth be- 

 fore the flowers open. These are white, with a mem- 

 branaceous, nearly entire calyx enclosing the short tube 

 of the corolla, and emit a disagreeable odor not unlike that 

 of the flowers of the common Privet, which they much 

 resemble. 



Mr. Hemsley refers Syringa Pekinensis, in his enumera- 

 tion of Chinese plants, to 5. Amurensis, and judged by the 

 plants in cultivation in the Arboretum, he is doubtless cor- 

 rect in doing so, although, from a garden point of view, 

 the habits of the two plants are so dissimilar that it may be 

 well, perhaps, for cultural purposes, to retain the two 

 names. The flowers of these two plants are indistinguish- 

 able, and the leaves vary only in size. The color of the 

 bark of the branches is the same in both, and so are the 

 scales of the winter-buds. Syringa Pekinensis has, how- 

 ever, much more slender branches than the Amoor plant ; 

 the winter-buds are smaller, and its whole habit and ap- 

 pearance are lighter and more graceful. The inflorescence 

 is smaller, more compact and less showy. Syringa Pe- 

 kinensis is evidently not free-blooming, in its young state 

 at least. The plants were ten feet high in the Arboretum 

 before they flowered at all, and when a few of them did 

 flower at last, these large plants bore three or four small 

 panicles only. 



Syringa Pekinensis, judged by the little that is now 

 known of it in gardens, is the least valuable of all the Li- 

 lacs as a flowering plant. It is very hardy, however, and 

 grows rapidly, and its habit is good. The plants all show 

 a tendency to develop pendulous branches, and it was one 

 of the Arboretum seedlings, in which this tendency was 

 rather more strongly developed than usual, which was the 

 origin of the so-called " Weeping Lilac," which has been 

 unduly extolled, in view of the fact that nothing was 

 known at all until last year about the flowers. Now that 

 the plant has flowered, it is seen how very far it falls short 

 of what has been claimed for it. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Royal Horticultural Society.— An exhibition of more 

 than ordinary interest was the result of the meeting held on 

 Tuesday last at Westminster. Orchids were represented by 

 large groups of Dendrobiums, among which the following 

 were conspicuous : D. Aspasia x, raised by Messrs. Veitch 

 from D. aureum and D. Wardianum. It has the pseudo-bulbs 

 and habit of the last named, and large, prettily marked, fra- 

 grant flowers, in which the colors and form of both parents 

 are blended ; D. lituiflorum superbum (Sander & Co.), remark- 

 able for the large size and deep color of its flowers ; D. signa- 

 tum and D. SmillicE. Well flowered plants of Phajus tubercu- 

 losus and a beautiful example of the new hybrid raised by Mr. 

 Cookson from the last named and P. Wallichii, were among 

 Mr. Sander's exhibits, as also was a plant in flower of the rare 

 and elegant little Cypripedium Schomburgkianum, which has 

 been lately introduced from the regions of the Roraima in 

 British Guiana. A charming variety of Odontoglossum Pesca- 

 torei, named melano centrum, bearing a stout, branched spike 

 of flowers, which are large and pure white, with a blotch of 

 purplish crimson on the base of the lip, came from Mr. 

 Tantz, of Hammersmith. Lycaste Skinneri, Young's variety, 

 is distinct and decidedly pretty in the tinting of its flowers, 

 which are of medium size, pure white, the lip and petals tinged 

 with a pale coppery hue. Several hybrid Cypripediums, inter- 

 esting only as hybrids, but of no beauty, were exhibited, and a 

 plant of the singular hybrid Cymbidium, raised by Messrs. 

 Veitch from C. ebumeum and C. Lowianum, was also shown 

 in flower. A collection of plants sent from Kew comprised 

 Godwinia gigas in flower, the spathe deep purple, boat-shaped, 

 twenty-one inches long and six inches wide; Dracontium 



