April 16, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



187 



formality of his patios and smaller gardens than the outer pleas- 

 ure-grounds of the Alhambra and the Generalif near Granada. 



Granada lies in a ravine cut by the River Darro, and extends 

 out into the plain at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. The Alham- 

 bra rears its rosy towers from one of the mountain spurs, and 

 the road that approaches it winds up from the city gate by a 

 steep picturesque ascent to the main gateway of the palace. 

 Theophile Gautier* describes this road as cut through a lofty 

 forest and bordered by rivulets curling close to the roots of 

 the trees, while from every crevice in natural rock or artificial 

 wall gushes a bubbling spring ; and a more recent writerf 

 speaks in similar words of the constant yet irregular way in 

 which water is everywhere introduced — tiny water-falls shoot 

 out unexpectedly from the sides of the cliff, "suddenly to dis- 

 appear into a yawning underground conduit. All this work," 

 he adds, "is entirely artificial, but is so completely in accord 

 with its surroundings, so thoroughly artistic in thought, that it 

 possesses the unstudied charm of nature's best examples. 

 Altogether, the outer gardens of the Alhambra are as delight- 

 fully planned as entrances to a realm of fairy-land as could 

 be imagined. The Moorish landscape-work and the pic- 

 turesque mysteries of the palace are revealed little by little. 

 There is no general vista, no all-embracing view, but the 

 imagination is left to picture what is dimly revealed through 

 the trees and across the fountains and under the wide arches, 

 while, as in all Moorish work, the attention is held by half-dis- 

 closed attractions. This is the keynote of the whole arrange- 

 ment — to awaken interest by unexpected surprises and half- 

 concealed vistas." Naturally, the aspect of this approach to 

 the Alhambra must be much wilder to-day than when it was 

 laid out in the thirteenth century. Yet the landscape-gardener 

 buildsmot for the hour, but for futurity ; and the fact that his 

 conception has here retained its charm while the passage of 

 centuries has accented his first idea, is proof of consummate 

 skill in the " art which conceals art." 



From this picturesque approach the Alhambra enclosure is 

 entered through a great gateway, in the thickness of which the 

 path makes two sharp turns, emerging as a steep roadway 

 flanked by high walls that conceal everything but the " Ver- 

 milion Towers " of the palace at the top. It ends on a broad, 

 flat, open terrace (once very extensive, but now partly covered 

 by a huge Renaissance palace built by Charles V.), which 

 affords a magnificent view over the ravine below and the 

 course of the Darro. The original design of the gardens which 

 spread before the palace cannot be deciphered, but, says Mr. 

 Blackall, " the large terrace, with quiet, shady avenues leading 

 from it, was probably then, as now, the central feature of the 

 scheme." The palace itself is so largely composed of a mul- 

 titude of patios, filled with fountains and water-works of every 

 kind, that, in Gautier's words, it seems, "like many other 

 Moorish habitations, merely a big, decorated fountain." 



New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



Plant Notes. 

 Two American Honeysuckles. 



THERE has always been a great deal of confusion 

 in gardens with regard to the identity of two 

 climbing Honeysuckles of the Eastern States which are 

 sometimes cultivated — Lonicera flava and Lonicera Sulli- 

 vantii ; and it is only in recent years that botanists have 

 comprehended the differences which distinguish these plants 

 and their geographical distribution. The figures, there- 

 fore, of the two species, which appear on pages 190 and 

 191 of this issue, will serve, perhaps, to facilitate their 

 identification. 



Lonicera flava is an old inhabitant of gardens. The earliest 

 mention of this plant was published in 1802 in Drayton's 

 "Views of South Carolina," where it was described as 

 growing on Paris Mountain, a low, isolated elevation near 

 Greenville, in that state. John Eraser, a Scotch botanical 

 traveler and collector, visited this place afterward and sent 

 or carried plants to England in 18 10. No other botanist, 

 so far as is known, has ever been on Paris Mountain, and 

 Lonicera flava, although it has been reported as growing in 

 upper Georgia, is only known now by the descendants of 

 Eraser's plants, which have been kept in gardens, where, 

 however, they are too rarely seen and are too little known; 



* ,f Voyage en Espagne." 



tC. H. Blackball, Garden and Forest, i., 255. 



while wild specimens arc one of the chief desiderata in 

 herbaria of American plants. 



Lonicera flava (Fig. 23) has twining stems growing to a 

 height of ten or twelve feet, broadly oval leaves, the two 

 or three upper pairs connate into a broad disk, and, like 

 the stems, quite glabrous. The flowers, produced in short, 

 simple, terminal clusters, open here in June. The corolla is 

 bright orange-yellow, the slender tube longer than the 

 limb and hirsute-pubescent on the upper part of the inte- 

 rior. The filaments and style are glabrous. The bright 

 scarlet fruit is ovate and contracted at the apex into a short 

 point. 



Lonicera Sallivantii (Fig. 34) was first noticed more than 

 fifty years ago by Mr. W. S. Sullivant, who found it in Ohio, 

 and who suggested doubtfully in his "Catalogue of the 

 Plants of Columbus " that it was an undescribed plant. It 

 was confounded, however, with Lonicera flava as a variety 

 in Torrey and Gray's " Flora of North America," and in all 

 the editions of Gray's "Manual" except the last. Mr. 

 Sullivant at the time of his discovery sent plants to the 

 botanic garden of Harvard College, where it was propa- 

 gated and quite generally distributed, but always under the 

 name of Lonicera flava, and it is still almost always mis- 

 taken for that plant, which is extremely rare in gardens, 

 being found now, so far as I have noticed, only in the 

 garden of the Paris Museum and at Cambridge and in the 

 Arboretum here ; while Lonicera Sullivaniii is not a rare 

 plant in cultivation in eastern New England, where its 

 large glaucous foliage is a familiar object in many country 

 gardens. 



Lonicera Sullivantii has feebly twining or sarmentose 

 stems, rarely more than four or five feet long ; and 

 oval and obovate-oblong, thick, leathery leaves; those 

 on the flowering stems are sessile and generally con- 

 nate, the uppermost forming an orbicular disk. They 

 become whitened, as do the stems, late in the season with a 

 glaucous bloom, which makes this plant conspicuous and 

 its recognition easy. The flowers are borne in elongated, 

 loose, whorled clusters, often with a cluster in the axils of 

 the second pair of leaves, and appear here at the same time 

 as those of L. flava; they may be distinguished from the 

 flowers of that species by their shorter corolla-tube, which 

 is distinctly swollen or gibbous near the base, a little 

 longer than the limb, pale yellow, marked with purple on 

 the side exposed to the light. It is glabrous on the outer 

 surface, and the filaments are glabrous or nearly so. The 

 fruit is rather larger than that of L. flava and is nearly 

 globular. 



Lonicera Sullivantii is rather a widely distributed species, 

 being found from central Ohio to Illinois, Wisconsin and 

 the shores of Lake Winnipeg, and southward to central 

 Tennessee. It has probably not extended much outside of 

 New England as a cultivated plant ; and if it exists in 

 European gardens at all, it will probably be found under 

 the name of L. flava. 



These two species are handsome garden plants, espe- 

 cially L. flava. They are perfectly hardy and well worth 

 cultivating, although their flowers are less fragrant than 

 those of the English Woodbine (L. Caprifohuni) or than 

 those of the Japanese Honeysuckle. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



SOME plants of exceptional interest were exhibited at the 

 meeting of the London Horticultural Society held at 

 Westminster on March 25th. The Orchids call for attention 

 first. A hybrid raised from Cattleya Mossia and Lalia cinna- 

 barina was an object of special interest, both to botanists and 

 horticulturists. It was labeled Lalia-Cattleya hippolyta. It 

 has a slender pseudo-bulb four inches long, a leaf six inches 

 long by one and a quarter inches in breadth, and a flower live 

 inches in diameter, spreading as in L. cinnabarina, the sepals 

 half an inch and the petals an inch wide, the labellum two 

 inches long, narrow, tubular, crisped and wavy in front. Its 

 color is a uniform tawny yellow of a pleasing shade. It was 



