236 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 14, 1890. 



Naturally, everything which carries flower-buds through the 

 winter suffered, and the larger the buds, the more easily were 

 they deluded by the false hopes of midwinter, and the more 

 easily they fell a prey to the cold weather of March. 



State College, Penn. W. A. Btickhoilt. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Buckleya distichophylla. 



THE French Broad River, one of the most picturesque 

 of the streams which have their source in the Alle- 

 ghany Mountains, flows along the base of a high lime- 

 stone cliff just before it passes from North Carolina into 

 Tennessee. This is Paint Rock, on the right bank of the 

 river, and a few miles below the Warm Springs of North Car- 

 olina, a well known and much frequented health resort. 

 Paint Rock is divided by a small stream which cuts through 

 it nearly at right angles with the French Broad, into which 

 the smaller stream falls at this point, marking the bound- 

 ary between the two states. On the steep rocky ledges 

 which rise from the banks of the smaller stream, which, 

 unless it is swollen by freshets, is hardly more than a shal- 

 low brook, grows one of the rarest plants in America — 

 Buckleya distichophylla, of which the first figure which has 

 appeared is published on page 237 of this issue. 



It is an interesting feature of the flora of the southern 

 part of eastern North America that it contains several 

 plants extremely localized; several of them monotypic, 

 like Neviusia and Darbya, others like Shortia and Buckleya, 

 with east Asia representatives hardly to be distinguished 

 from their American prototypes ; and others like Croion 

 Alabamensis and Rhus cotonoides (a true Old World type), 

 representing widely distributed American genera, but them- 

 selves very local. Several other plants could be named 

 were it necessary to show more conclusively the changes 

 which time has brought about in the character of our 

 flora, reducing the number of individuals of certain types 

 once widely distributed, if the theory of gradual extermina- 

 tion of certain forms of plants is to be accepted, to a few 

 hundred or a few thousand individuals. Buckleya is one 

 of the rarest of all these plants. The only place where it 

 is known to grow is on the steep rocky ledges of Paint 

 Rock. Here is the last stronghold in America of a very 

 peculiar type, which, as it still exists over a considerable 

 area in Asia, once occupied, it is possible to conceive, a 

 much larger space on the American continent than it does 

 at present. But there are special reasons why this par- 

 ticular plant cannot spread far or very fast from any 

 spot where it had obtained a foothold. The male and 

 female flowers are produced on different individuals, so 

 that fertilization might not be accomplished always easily; 

 and the seed, which ripens and falls in September, when 

 the ground is usually dry and unfit to secure germination, 

 loses its vitality almost immediately by the degeneration 

 of the oily albumen which surrounds the embryo. The 

 branches will not root like those of many plants when they 

 come in contact with the soil, and it does not spread by 

 underground shoots or stolons. The propagation of Buck- 

 leya, therefore, is dependent on the seed finding conditions 

 favorable to its immediate germination ; and that it does 

 so still sometimes, is shown by the fact that a few seed- 

 lings and young plants are scattered among the older indi- 

 viduals ; but there are not a great many of these, and one 

 fire of very moderate severity would exterminate Buckleya 

 distichophylla from its native locality as completely as 

 Gordonia Altamaha, another very local southern plant, has 

 been exterminated from the only spot it is known to have 

 inhabited naturally. 



Buckleya distichophylla has been known to botanists for 

 many years. It was discovered by Mr. Thomas Nuttall, 

 who, returning from one of his western journeys, ascended 

 the French Broad in the autumn of 18 16, and found this 

 plant, which he referred to the genus Borya. Twenty or 

 thirty years later Paint Rock was visited by Mr. S. B. Buck- 

 ley, who made many botanical explorations in the south- 



ern states, and finally settled in Texas, where he died a few 

 years ago. Dr. Torrey, to whom Buckley sent specimens, 

 determined the true character and relationship of the plant 

 and bestowed upon it the name it bears. Asa Gray ap- 

 pears to have been the next botanist to visit Paint Rock. 

 In 1842, soon after the charge of the Cambridge Botanic 

 Garden was entrusted to him, Dr. Gray made a longjourney 

 through the mountain region of the south for the purpose 

 of collecting roots and seeds for the garden. His visit to 

 Paint Rock is interesting because he brought away with 

 him a root of Buckleya, which he planted at Cambridge, 

 where it still flourishes, and which, up to two years ago, 

 was the only individual of this plant in cultivation. For 

 years every effort was made to propagate the Cambridge 

 plant ; it bore pistillate flowers only, and so produced no 

 seeds ; neither green nor hard wood cuttings would strike ; 

 root cuttings failed to grow ; layers were unsuccessfully 

 tried year after year ; no stock could be found on which it 

 could be grafted successfully, and the experiment of graft- 

 ing pieces of the roots with the branches, the last resource 

 generally of baffled, propagators, was equally unsuccessful. 

 So for nearly forty years the Cambridge plant remained the 

 absolutely unique representative of this genus in cultiva- 

 tion, an instance of rarity of a garden plant without a 

 parallel so far as I can remember, when the period during 

 which it lasted is considered. 



A number of botanists have visited Paint Rock of late 

 years, but none of them were there at just the right season 

 to secure young plants or ripe seeds of Buckleya; but in 

 the autumn of 1888 Mr. Canby and I went across the Big 

 Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, and then made a detour 

 to the French Broad for the purpose of looking up Buck- 

 leya. Fortunately, we got to Paint Rock just as the ripe 

 fruit, of which there was a great crop, was falling, and we 

 were able to secure several hundred seeds, which were sent 

 home at once, packed in damp soil, and also a number of 

 small seedlings. The seed arrived at the Arboretum in 

 good order and germinated at once. Several of the young 

 plants which we dug up have survived, so that there is 

 now reason to hope that the existence of Buckleya in 

 America may not be dependent on the rather remote chance 

 that the surface of the ledges of Paint Rock may escape a visit 

 of fire, and that the single old plant in Cambridge may last 

 indefinitely. 



Mr. Faxon's drawing shows so clearly the structure of 

 the flowers and fruit of Buckleya, which are described in 

 standard works of botany, that nothing more need be said 

 about them now. The plant grows to a height of ten or 

 twelve feet, with slender, graceful, spreading branches, and 

 light green, delicate foliage, which is its chief beauty, the 

 flowers and green fruit being quite inconspicuous. It is 

 a member of the small although widely distributed family 

 of the Santalacecs ; and its North American relatives are 

 two shrubs of the southern states, Pyrularia, the Oilnut, 

 and Darbya ; and a familiar and common herb of northern 

 woods, Commandra umbellata. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 

 Decorative Palms.— The number of Palms now grown by 

 nurserymen in England is surprising. They are represented 

 by hundreds of thousands in some of the principal London 

 establishments, and they are said to find a market readily 

 enough to satisfy the growers. The seeds are imported by 

 the bushel and sown, not in pans or boxes, but on beds in low 

 houses where they require little attention and may be forked 

 up and planted with ease. The species most abundantly 

 grown are Kentia Belmoreana, K. Fosteriana and K. Canter- 

 buryana, Areca lutescens, Seaforthia elegans, Ptychosperma 

 Alexandra, Hyophorbe Verschaffeltii, Latania Borbonica {Liv- 

 istona Sinensis), Cocos Weddelliana and Geonoma gracilis. 

 These names are those used by the nurserymen and I there- 

 fore use them in preference to those favored by botanists. An 

 instance of the difficulties often presented by synonymy in 

 plant names recently came under my notice. A nurseryman 

 who grows Latania Borbonica by the thousand sent to Kew 



