August 6, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



379 



The exact type common in cultivation all up and down western 

 California has, within a few years, been found on one or two 

 maritime rocks smaller than Anacapa and lying near the large 

 island of Santa Catalina. But the principal native locality for 

 the species is the island of San Miguel, the northernmost 

 member of the Santa Barbara group, and an island two or 

 three miles in extent. But the shrub of San Miguel differs in sev- 

 eral ways, and quite notably, from that which is in cultivation, 

 and which came from the more southerly station. It is of 

 more robust and compact growth, making a shapely and 

 handsome small tree ; its leaves are much larger, its flowers 

 of a deeper red, and the stellate pubescence, prevalent in the 

 malvaceous family, is far more abundant. 



On my return from San Miguel Island in 1886, I felt some 

 suspicions that the Lavatera might be proven indigenous to 

 the peninsula of San Francisco. Although 300 miles of sea 

 intervene, the soil and climate of the two localities are much 

 alike. I had seen it flourishing in abundance at the Cliff 

 House in wild looking places among the bluffs overhanging the 

 sea, and also, as I thought, in places among the sand hills 

 rather remote from where it was likely to have been planted. 

 I had also been informed by older members of the California 

 Academy that it had been still more common years ago than 

 now at various places back of San Francisco, where there were 

 no settlements. But having revisited and carefully inspected 

 every locality there, I became convinced that it is not indige- 

 nous on any part of the peninsula of San Francisco. The 

 largest trees, and those appearing as if they might be twenty 

 years old or more, are either under cultivation and where they 

 were planted by the hand of man, or else in the vicinity of old 

 dwellings. It is very commonly planted in rows along the 

 western and northern sides of market-gardens, where it 

 speedily grows into an effective hedge, which, while not dense 

 enough to be impervious to animals, serves a useful purpose 

 in breaking the force of the cold sea winds which prevail from 

 those points of the compass during the summer. 



The leaves and twigs, abounding in mucilage, are a nutri- 

 tious and wholesome food for sheep and cattle, which are very 

 fond of them. On San Miguel the only trees surviving in 

 1886 were certain large-sized ones, which bore their branches 

 above the reach of any ruminant. The smaller ones were 

 dead or moribund through having been too closely browsed 

 by the sheep. 



The individual flower of this species is really very beautiful; 

 and it is only because the branches are a little coarse and un- 

 wieldy, and the foliage apt to conceal the richest profusion of 

 the flowers, that the shrub as a whole is not highly attractive. 

 The petals, an inch long or more, arranged as in the Holly- 

 hock or Mallow, are of a peculiar deep pink color, veined with 

 almost a carmine. On first unfolding they spread apart only 

 so far as to form a bell-shaped corolla, afterward becoming 

 abruptly deflexed from a little above the base, so that the body 

 of the corolla is inside out ; and since the flowers are pendu- 

 lous, each on a long, slender stalklet, this inversion of the 

 corolla gives the fullest exposure of the stamens and pistils to 

 the favoring agency of the winds. The seeds, which are 

 under all circumstances matured in abundance, germinate 

 freely where they fall ; and so the species spreads wherever 

 planted, if not too far from the sea. In the interior of the 

 state I have never seen it. 



Although none of the other three North American species 

 of this genus are properly Californian, inasmuch as they in- 

 habit each an island of its own off the coast of the Mexican 

 territory of Lower California, still they must be mentioned in 

 connection with L. assurgeniiflora, and I name first of the 

 three L. venosa, confined to the little island of San Benito, the 

 position of which is about 500 miles south of the islets occu- 

 pied by the best known species. And while an intermediate 

 islet has yielded a third, and a very different species, the two 

 which belong to those widely separated extremes of our 

 Lavatera archipelago, although so distinct that no botanist 

 having seen them both will be likely to think of them as very 

 closely related, they are far more like each other than either 

 one is like either of the two whose geographical range is inter- 

 mediate. This is another strange fact to be noted in connec- 

 tion with this capricious sorosis of sea-rock shrubs. 



L. venosa has about the same foliage as that of L. assurgen- 

 iiflora, though of a deeper green, with even less pubescence. 

 Its flowers are also hung each upon a long and slender 

 peduncle, but they are rather more than twice as large, com- 

 monly measuring three inches from tip to tip of the widely 

 spreading petals. The color of the petals is mainly white be- 

 low the middle, of a rich violet above, about five heavy veins 

 of the violet streaking the otherwise white portion of the 

 organ down to its base. The leaves being rather smaller than 



those of L. assurgeniiflora, and the flowers twice as large, it is 

 far more showy ; and the individual flowers are greatly ad- 

 mired by the few who have seen them. Two years ago some 

 small seedlings were brought to me from San Benito by a 

 friendly naval officer whom I had asked to do me the favor, 

 and the one surviving individual of the lot, now blooming lux- 

 uriantly at Berkeley, is doubtless the only one alive upon this 

 or any other continent. Its mode of growth is altogether pe- 

 culiar. There is always an erect main stem, from which the 

 branches take a descending instead of an ascending or even 

 horizontal direction, so that the trunk is ultimately concealed 

 by the leafy and flowery branches whose tips reach the ground 

 and then turn up or spread or straggle about. My bush hav- 

 ing been continuously in flower since the beginning of Feb- 

 ruary, promises now a crop of seeds. It seemed to endure 

 the slight frosts of our " Bay region " about as well as does its 

 familiar ally, whose native station is far more northerly than 

 its own. 



L. insularis, of the Coronado Island, seven miles off the 

 coast of northern Lower California, and L. occidentalis, of 

 Guadalupe Island, are more robust shrubs than either of the 

 aforenamed, and their stout branches, short and firmly ascend- 

 ing, combine to form a low, umbrella-like head; their large 

 greenish and violet-streaked corollas are strictly bell-shaped, 

 inserted on short peduncles, and are mostly concealed by the 

 foliage. The essential distinction between these two, as spe- 

 cies, lies in the foliage, and is one which an amateur might 

 overlook, although the eye of a practical botanist would 

 quickly both catch the marked difference and recognize its 

 specific importance. In L. insularis the five or seven lobes 

 of the leaf radiate all around the end of the leaf-stalk, giving 

 quite a star-shaped outline to the whole. In L. occidentalis 

 the lobes all incline forward in such wise that the leaf is ren- 

 dered digitate or hand-shaped. These two species, each re- 

 stricted to its own island, and the two islands more than 200 

 miles apart, form a group by themselves, both having gray- 

 green foliage, short-stalked violet and green flowers, with 

 corollas broad and open even to the base, but not recurved or 

 reflexed ; both also have that compact habit which, making 

 display of the handsome pointed foliage, compensates for the 

 concealment of the flowers. 



It is a curious fact that, while L. veiiosa, the home of which 

 is nearest the tropic, endures well the winter of the latitude of 

 San Francisco, L. insularis, whose locality is only thirty 

 miles below San Diego, is more tender. Of two specimens of 

 the latter which I brought to flowering here from seeds gath- 

 ered while on Coronado in 1885, one was killed by frost two 

 years ago, and the other succumbed a year later. 



But the main charm of these shrubs is that which they pos- 

 sess in the eye of the student of plant geography. The genus 

 Lavatera belongs to the Mediterranean region of the Old 

 World, where there are perhaps twenty species. There is one 

 in Australia. On the continent of America not one occurs. 

 On a few Pacific coast islands and islets lying at distances of 

 from seven to twenty-five miles from the mainland, we have 

 three, with a fourth on another which lies at a greater distance. 



That all these species, even when transferred to the latitude 

 of San Francisco, begin their new growth and exhibit their 

 flower buds about Christmas, comesof the fact that the climate 

 they are all used to is in effect a tropical one. On their respec- 

 tive insular shores they all grow at a little distance from the 

 water line, where the temperature is as mild and equable as pos- 

 sible and where there is never the slightest frost; and there is 

 no island on all the coast whose vegetation does not seem to 

 be about three weeks earlier than that on the adjacent main- 

 land. 



The three southerly species here spoken of, as yet almost 

 unknown except to two or three Californian botanists, will be 

 slow in getting into cultivation. The open air climate of San 

 Francisco, even, is rather too severe for them; but on account 

 of their great botanical interest as well as for their singular 

 beauty they are sure to receive further attention. 

 University of California. Edward L. Greene. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



LILIUMS were the principal feature at the last meeting of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society. Mr. H. J. Elwes deliv- 

 ered an address of exceptional interest, both botanically and 

 horticulturally. As monographer of the genus, and as a culti- 

 vator of the plants for many years, Mr. Elwes has special 

 claims to be heard on the subject of their botanical differ- 

 ences and their requirements under cultivation. Whilst few 

 will be found to decry Liliums as ornamental plants, there are 



