394 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 13, 1890. 



the younger leaves. having an attractive purplish tint. The 

 tendrils on different seedling plants exhibit all forms of varia- 

 tion between the grape-like ones and the much-branched, 

 disk-bearing ones. 



Nurserymen would do well to propagate varieties with espe- 

 cial reference to their climbing properties, the density and 

 shade of their foliage, and the quality of retaining their leaves 

 after they have assumed their brilliant autumnal hue. 



University of Wisconsin, Madison. F. o. OOff. 



Iris Gatesii. — This new Iris, for which we are indebted to 

 the energy and enterprise of Herr Max Leichtlin, has flowered 

 lately in a few collections in Europe. It is larger and more 

 attractive even than /. Susiana, hitherto considered the king 

 of the genus. Max Leichtlin is reported to have said of /. 

 Gatesii that it has " the most aristocratic appearance of any 

 flower that has ever passed through his hands." Professor 

 Michael Foster, the high priest of the Iris cult, described it 

 last year in the following words : " Imagine a flower often very 

 much larger than /. Susiana, of a delicate light gray hue, re- 

 sulting from minute dots and delicate veins of a rich purple 

 on a creamy white ground, or at times of a pure light sky blue, 

 marked with deeper veins, and at the same time of peculiar 

 grace and form." The plant is a native of Armenia, and re- 

 quires the same treatment as /. Susiana, to which it is closely 

 affined. It was named after the Rev. T. F. Gates, of the 

 American Mission at Mardin. A figure of it from a plant 

 flowered by Max Leichtlin has lately been published in the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle. 



I learn from Mr. De Graaf, of Leiden, that to succeed with 1. 

 Susiana and its allies the treatment must be more liberal than 

 is usually afforded. Mr. De Graaf grows these plants by the 

 thousand, and treats them exactly as he treats Tulips and Cro- 

 cuses — i.e., lifts them and stores them dry for the winter, and 

 replants again in early spring in rich soil in open beds. Those 

 who have tried the dry frame treatment for this section of 

 Irises should try also that recommended, and, moreover, 

 proved most successful, by Mr. De Graaf. 



Kew. 



w. 



O' 



Cultural Department. 

 Notes on American Plants. 



|NE of our most showy biennials which blooms the last of 

 July is the Sabbatia chloroides, a species of the American 

 Centaury. The whole plant is somewhat slender, seldom over 

 eighteen inches high, with a few not large, oblong-lanceolate 

 leaves. The flowers are single at the extremities of a few slen- 

 der peduncles about two inches wide and rose colored. They 

 open in the middle of the day and close at night. The plant is 

 often bent down at time of flowering, owing to its slender 

 stems. It inhabits the " borders of brackish ponds " from New 

 England southward, and it seems to prefer a moist, sandy soil 

 on the margin of some pond or stream. When once estab- 

 lished in a suitable locality it would no doubt continue from 

 year to year and it is surely one of our most desirable natives. 

 Baptisia tinctoria (Wild Indigo), a herbaceous perennial, 

 two to three feet high, with many spreading leafy branches 

 bearing numerous light yellow flowers half an inch long near 

 the ends, is a useful plant in many places, and it flowers about 

 the middle of July. The three oval leaflets are about the size 

 of those of the White Clover and much resemble them. It 

 thrives on the poorest sandy plain-land, along the borders of 

 woods or in open fields. Its foliage alone is worth the trouble 

 of growing it, and when once established it seems to require 

 little or no attention. 



Calochortus macrocarpus, one of the later flowering species 

 of the Butterfly Tulips, is a plant in greater demand among 

 European dealers than most of this genus. Its large, showy, 

 lightish purple flowers, more than two inches wide, are hardly 

 excelled by any other species. But in our light, sandy soil and 

 climate it is almost a total failure. The plants in early spring 

 showed much vigor and sent up strong flowering stems, but 

 before the buds were half grown the leaves died and only a 

 few flowers ever opened. Perhaps a heavier soil would suit it 

 better. 



Cooperia is a genus belonging to the Amaryllis family, of 

 which we have received three species from southern Texas. 

 They much resemble some of the species of Zephyranthes, 

 and might easily be taken for them. The plants come from a 

 spherical, medium-sized bulb, have long and narrow grass-like 

 leaves, and naked scapes about a foot high which bear a single 

 white or pale rose flower. Cooperia pedunculata is the largest 

 and strongest species and the first to flower by more than a 



week. Its more numerous leaves are wider than in either of 

 the others and the plant seems the most desirable of the three. 

 C. Drummondii and another called C. Oberwetteri are smaller, 

 with narrower and more slender leaves and smaller flowers, 

 coming into bloom about the same time, ten or fifteen days 

 later than the first. Like most bulbous plants from the south 

 they should be wintered in dry sand in a cellar. 



Zephyranthes Texana, from southern Texas, has a reddish 

 yellow flower with darker stripes, nearly an inch wide. The 

 outside is still darker. Its foliage is very scant and at time of 

 flowering there is little but the almost naked scape and flower 

 to be seen above ground. Its height is hardly eight inches. 

 The flowers last about two days. 



Nemastylis tetiuis is a showy little species from Mexico. 

 Here in our northern climate it attains a height of only five 

 inches, but it bears a bright yellow flower, with a slightly 

 darker centre, an inch wide. The leaf is small and not con- 

 spicuous, and about all there is visible is the flower and its 

 slender stem. The bulbs are small, half an inch or there- 

 abouts in diameter, and covered with thick coating, to protect 

 them from prolonged drought. 



One of our most charming little natives at this season is 

 Talinum teretifolium, a low, leafy-stemmed plant, with a pe- 

 duncle about five inches long bearing an ample cyme of pink 

 or rose-purple flowers over half an inch wide. It acts like an 

 annual, but of this I am not sure. At all events, it flowers from 

 seed the first year, and plants that bloomed last season did not 

 come up this ; but the open winter might have killed them. 

 It seems to do best in shade. 



The Marsh St. John's Wort (Elodes Virginica), with its pink 

 or flesh colored flowers and numerous oblong-ovate clasping 

 leaves, makes a pretty garden plant, now in flower. Its height 

 is about fifteen inches, branching near the top. Its flowers 

 are in small clusters and are about half an inch broad. It is a 

 useful plant for the artificial bog, or it thrives well in any fine 

 loamy soil in the shade or sun. 



Asclepias verticillata (Whorled Milkweed) comes into flower 

 the latter part of July. Its height is about fifteen inches, and 

 its very numerous narrow leaves, which are in whorls at regu- 

 lar intervals along the stem, are about two inches long, and 

 about six in a whorl. The flowers are nearly white, in several 

 small umbels at and near the summit of the simple stem. It 

 is an attractive, hardy perennial, easy to grow, and thrives in 

 shade or sun. 



The Wild Senna [Cassia Marilandica), which flowers here 

 about August 1st, is one of our most valuable native peren- 

 nials — a member of the Pulse family. Strong roots send up 

 several stout, but simple, leafy stems, three or four feet high 

 and bearing near and at the summit numerous lateral racemes 

 of yellow flowers. Its foliage is fine from the time it matures 

 until frost, and its flowers are also very pretty. It is not par- 

 tial as to soil, but it will do well in any ordinary garden soil, 

 and may be planted in either spring or autumn. 



Tigridia Pringlei (see vol. i., p. 389, Fig. 61) prefers a heavy 

 soil — a clay loam — to that of light sand with little or no clay ; 

 and this seems to be the case with most Tigridias we have 

 tried. It has greatly improved in the three seasons of cultiva- 

 tion, the old bulbs being more than double their size when first 

 gathered, and they bear larger and richer colored flowers. In 

 one respect it is quite unlike most of the species common in 

 cultivation, and that is, it is not much inclined to increase by 

 the division of its bulbs. This season, in the light soil where 

 we set it, the plants are hardly two-thirds as tall and the flow- 

 ers are fewer and smaller. 



Southwick, Mass. F. H. Horsford. 



Rational Pruning- of the Raspberry. 



THE Raspberry-plant is a sort of compromise between a 

 *■ perennial herb and a shrub. Its stems are woody, but 

 instead of living on from year to year, and bearing an indefi- 

 nite number of crops like the Currant, it lives but about a 

 year and a half, and, like a multitude of other plants, perishes 

 after maturing its seed, while its roots live on indefi- 

 nitely. Like many of the herbs, the stems make a very rapid 

 growth until they have attained their normal stature, when, in 

 common with their branches, they terminate in a cluster of 

 flowers, followed in due time by the fruit. Such would be the 

 case, at all events, but for the fact that winter usually inter- 

 venes before the normal growth is completed, and destroys 

 the terminal bud, leaving the future growth to be made by the 

 axillary buds that have not yet started into vegetation. 



This explanation should give us a clue to a rational method 

 of pruning the Raspberry (and Blackberry as well), which 

 has long been a sort of mystery to many growers of these 

 delicious fruits. Why prune them at all ? There are two 



