364 



Garden and Forest. 



[July 23, 1890. 



Blue Grass lawn there seems to be no other way but to 

 clean the land by digging out and destroying every root 

 and root-stock so far as possible, and then to watch care- 

 fully for its second coming and attack it again at its earli- 

 est appearance. — Ed.] 



Notes. 



It is believed that the Hollyhock was brought to Europe 

 from China as early as the year 1573. 



About 1,400 species of Orchids, 1,100 of Ferns and 500 of 

 Palms and Cycads are grown in the Botanic Gardens at Kew. 



An edition of Mr. George H. Ellwanger's "The Garden's 

 Story" has been published in England with a pleasant preface 

 by C. Wooley Dod. 



According to a letter recently published in the Popular 

 Science Monthly the finest hand-spun Belgian flax, such as is 

 used in making costly lace, is worth from $900 to $1,000 a ton. 



Mr. James H. Laing, of the Messrs. John Laing & Sons, the 

 well known nurserymen, florists and specialists in Begonias, of 

 Forest Hill, London, has sailed for New York on a tour 

 through the United States. 



A writer in The Argosy, Demerara, says that the blue spikes 

 of the pretty pond-weed, Eichornia tricolor, from Brazil, are 

 excellent for cutting. The little flowers fade at evening, but a 

 new crop opens next morning, so that a spike will continue to 

 bloom for more than a week until all its buds are exhausted. 



Writing in Zoe, Mr. F. H. Vaslit notes the following plants 

 as having escaped from cultivation and become naturalized in 

 the Coast Range Mountains: Garden Chrysanthemums, which 

 seem to be becoming true "weeds," that is, are already "rather 

 troublesome to get rid of "; Fuller's Teazle {Dipsacus Fullo- 

 nuni); Mourning Bride (Scabiosa atropurpurea); and the larger 

 Periwinkle ( Vinca major). 



The English horticultural journals continue to lament the 

 prevalence of the Lily disease among the Ascension Lilies. In 

 some places not a single flower bloomed this year from a hun- 

 dred bulbs. This disease has been very deadly in this country 

 and is so still in many places, but near New York this year it 

 seems to have abated and the Lilies in many gardens have 

 proved unusually strong and beautiful. 



It is said that since the opening of navigation on the Cas- 

 pian Sea this spring more cotton has been brought from 

 central Asia to Moscow than during the whole of the year 

 1889. Experiments are now being made with the Cotton- 

 plant in the Crimean peninsula and in other places along the 

 coast of the Black Sea with seed brought partly from more 

 eastern regions and partly from America. 



It is only in very recent years that the name Gardenia has 

 been commonly applied in this country to the handsome flow- 

 ers for which it is the correct botanical name as well as the 

 one almost invariably used in England. Here they have been 

 most generally called Cape Jessamines, although they come 

 from China and are not botanically Jasminums. Yet the genus 

 was named for Dr. Alexander Garden, of Charleston, South 

 Carolina, who was a valued correspondent of Linnaeus. 



Limnanthemum Indicum, just now blooming, lifts its white, 

 star-shaped flowers, which are about as large as a five-cent 

 piece, only an inch or two above the water. The inside of the 

 petals — that is, their upper side when opened — is covered with 

 fine filaments which stand as thickly as those on the Mrs. 

 Hardy Chrysanthemum, and these give the flower such a light 

 and feathery look that the name " Water Snowflake " would 

 suit it well. It has floating foliage like that of a miniature 

 Nymphaea. 



Mr. William W. Lunt, of Hingham, Massachusetts, has sent 

 to this office for inspection a sketch in colors of a remarkably 

 fine variety of Cypripedium (Selenipedium) caudaticm gigan- 

 teum which differs from the type in that the prevailing color is 

 a reddish or bronze-like brown and yellow, instead of dark 

 brown and greenish. The pouch is also more nearly globu- 

 lar, but the striking feature of the plant is its high-colored 

 staminode and the great size of the lower sepal. The entire 

 flower is large. The plant is in a four-inch pot, and has three 

 old growths and three breaks. 



The yellow Water Lily which originated with Monsieur 

 Marliac in France and which was named by him Nymphcea 

 Marliacea chromatella has proved quite hardy in Borctentown, 

 New Jersey, where it remained all winter in a basin eighteen 



inches deep on the grounds of Mr. Sturtevant. It is now 

 blooming in several places near this city and it is one of the 

 handsomest of aquatic plants. It is a trifle larger than 

 Nymphcea odoraia, fragrant, with lemon-yellow petals and 

 orange stamens which intensify the apparent richness of its 

 color. Its foliage resembles that of N. candidisshna and it 

 flowers continuously from early summer until frost. 



A correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle gives the fol- 

 lowing as a select list of the finest varieties of Laced Pinks: 

 they are Beauty, a small flower, but very free to cut from; 

 Bayard, a large and full flower, beautifully laced with bright 

 red, a grand variety that laces well, and probably the best Pink 

 in cultivation; Clara, smooth, fine, a beautiful petal, regularly 

 laced with reddish purple; Empress of India, a very distinct 

 variety with rich deep lacing, extra fine; Eurydice and Excel- 

 sior, very good; Device, George White, Harry Hooper, rich 

 dark lacing; Jessica, Minerva, and Modesty, a very early vari- 

 ety, with bright rosy purple lacing ; Mrs. Waite, small, but 

 very pretty and free, and a charming border variety; and Rosy 

 Morn, a very handsome Pink, with broad lacing. 



A correspondent inquires how Professor Smith uses an 

 umbrella with a sack attachment to gather in Rose-chafers. 

 The collecting umbrella had better be specially made. Over 

 an old frame stretch a cover of oiled- silk or linen, and cut out 

 the crown, so that when the umbrella is open there will be a 

 round hole, about six inches in diameter, in the centre. To 

 this opening is sewed a bag about eighteen inches in length, 

 open both ends, but so arranged that the bottom can be drawn 

 together by a string. This bag, which will hang from the bot- 

 tom of the umbrella when inverted, should also be of oiled-silk 

 or linen, so as not to give the beetles a foothold. To any rough 

 material the insects will cling so closely that they must be 

 picked off to be dislodged, and from a cheese-cloth bag, such 

 as Professor Smith first tried, the beetles crawled for hours 

 afterward. To a smooth surface they cannot cling, and by 

 loosening the string at the bottom of the bag the whole con- 

 tents can be readily dumped. 



In one of his pleasant articles in The Garden, a "Gloucester- 

 shire Parson" writes with feeling of the ravages among rare 

 plants by collectors: " It is sad to see the depredations which 

 are made upon some of our rarer seaside plants. I have seen 

 ladies — ' towrists,' as the villagers generally call them — go down 

 with baskets, trowels and small steps into the beautiful sea 

 caves to carry off from thence huge specimens of Asplenium 

 niarinum. Now nothing adapts itself so well to culture in a 

 warm house as this Asplenium. It rapidly makes a lovely 

 specimen with its dark green, glossy fronds. But to rob the 

 dripping caves of all their beauty in such a way is really too 

 selfish. Moreover, small specimens always grow better than 

 large ones, so that it is a mistake for the depredators to trouble 

 and burden themselves with baskets and implements and 

 large plants. I believe I still know of caves, as yet untouched 

 by the tourist depredator, where this Fern luxuriates, and 

 spreads its dark green leaves in the shadow of the rock to the 

 soft sea breeze. But ere long every place will be found out." 



Dr. Harris, in a paper read before the Pennsylvania Horti- 

 cultural Society recently, called attention to the fact that some 

 of the most valuable vegetable productions, like the White 

 Potato, the Tomato and the Egg-plant, are the results of de- 

 velopment in a family which produces the Tobacco, the 

 Jamestown Weed and the deadly Nightshade ; and still more 

 singular is it that edible innocence in a product may be inti- 

 mately associated with a poisonous element in the plant. 

 Starch-yielding tubers may even be in themselves an associa- 

 tion of simplicity and venom, as we find in the Cassava, from 

 which tapioca is obtained, the soluble elements of the tuber 

 being poisonous, and the insoluble starch and pulp edible. 

 In the White Potato we have a Solanum which has poisonous 

 sprouts and fruit, with a valuable and innocent tuber or sub- 

 terranean root-stock. The poison, solania, is found in the 

 white sprouts of the tuber and in the green seed-ball or fruit, 

 but not in the tuber as prepared for the table by boiling or 

 roasting. Solania is not a powerful poison, and is one of very 

 uncertain strength ; still, death has been produced in child- 

 hood by eating the balls. Very young tubers and old sprouted 

 ones are unwholesome food, for these contain a fraction of the 

 poison. The Tomato plant contains solania, while the fruit, 

 which has the same unpleasant odor, is free from it. Three 

 deadly poisons, among the most potent of all active vegetable 

 principles, are obtained from some of the Solanacece — namely, 

 nicotia, from Tobacco; daturia, from Stramonium, and atropia, 

 from Belladonna. One drop of pure nicotia will kill a large 

 dog in a few minutes, and the other two are fatal in minute 

 quantities. 



