August 27, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



415 



River ; Magnolia Iiypolcuca and M. parinjlcra, the Japanese 

 Stuartia, and many more, including innumerable Vacciniums 

 and otner Ericacece, which are difficult to cultivate, and which 

 have been chiefly furnished by America. 



The number ot wild Roses, species or varieties, is simply 

 startling, and of especial importance in this department are the 

 Oil Roses. To Dr. Dieck is due the credit of having wrested 

 the monopoly of their culture from Bulgaria. Here the queen 

 of flowers is brought down to the level of prosaic vegetables, 

 and cultivated not in the privacy of gardens, but side by side 

 with Cabbages and Carrots. This new branch of agriculture 

 seems to have a prosperous future. The product — that is, the 

 odoriferous petals — can be advantageously sold to several 

 large manufactories of perfumes in Leipsic. It is especially 

 Herr Scheele, of Schadebach, near Zoeschen, who has taken 

 in hand this new enterprise, which demands a very fertile soil 

 or one strongly enriched and deeply trenched. He has planted 

 vast fields, which look like vineyards, with the oil-producing 

 Roses of the Balkan, among which Rosa triglntipetala seems 

 to promise best, in spite of the attacks of a certain fungus. 

 These Rose plantations are kept with wonderful neatness, and 

 one seeks in vain within them for the tiniest weed. They 

 yield annually a net return of $300 an acre, surely no mean 

 profit. Dr. Dieck proposes to study thoroughly the Rose of 

 Scrums, which will probably prove to be R. moschata, and the 

 attar of which, he says, is the most precious of all, though as 

 yet unknown outside of Persia. 



It is surprising to see the way in which certain newly intro- 

 duced American plants are growing at Zoeschen. In this 

 respect nothing surpasses the development of Alnus rhombi- 

 folia and Betula occidentalis, natives of British Columbia — nine 

 feet in two years and five months from sowing ! 



The park at Zoeschen, although not old and for the most 

 part planted by Dr. Dieck himself, nevertheless possesses 

 some very fine trees even, as might be expected, among very 

 rare species. The Sophora and the Ailanthus prosper, and the 

 Liquidambar does very well. I also remarked on a lawn near 

 a bit of water a superb group of Glyptostrobus, that curious 

 Chinese representative of the American Bald Cypress. These 

 specimens are grafted on Taxodium; but this does not detract 

 from their appearance. Furthermore, oneadmireshere a Japan- 

 ese Walnut (Jnglans Sieboldiand) of the finest expression, and 

 differing much in its foliage from J. Mandschurica. A little 

 known Rhamnus, of the Frangula group (A 5 , sempervirens), here 

 extends its large masses of foliage, which resist the cold until 

 Christmas. I noted Cormis alternifolia in the form of a little 

 tree, which spreads its branches in the most striking wav; and 

 here I saw for the first time Aralia spinosa and Panax sessili- 

 folium in full fruit. 



But, caring even more for great trees than for rare ones, 

 what charmed me most was a giant Robinia Pseudacacia, that 

 terminates and dominates the large lawn facing the house. 

 Berlin. Carl Bolle. 



[It would appear that many plants from Japan, which 

 are comparatively rare in European gardens, have been 

 grown for years in America. Taking those named at the 

 head of this column for example: A specimen of Magnolia 

 hypolenca, twenty-five years old, stands within the limit of 

 this city, while M. paivi/lora and the Stuartia have been 

 known for years in our suburban gardens. — Ed.] 



Notes on the Mexican Water Lilies. 



]SJ ATURE, lavish of her gifts in tropical climes, has sown 

 x ' in Mexican waters a larger and more pleasing variety of 

 the flower dedicated to the water nymphs of ancient mythol- 

 ogy than is found in our northern lakes. The species, as far 

 as known to mei are four : Nymphcea Mexicana, Zucc, with 

 yellow flowers, N. elegans, Hook., blue flowered, and N. am- 

 pla, DC, and N. gracilis, Zucc, with white flowers. The range 

 of distribution of all of these, with one exception, extends 

 within the present limits of the United States — N. ampla, N. 

 elegans and A 7 . Mexicana being known to occur in southern 

 Texas, and the latter, if, as is strongly suspected, this species 

 is identical with N.Jlava, in Florida also. 



A'. Mexicana I have traced from the lagoons of the lower 

 Rio Grande southward to the lakes of the valley of Mexico, 

 and westward to the slow streams of the great valley of the 

 Lerma, in the state of Jalisco. Its leaves are six or seven 

 inches broad on their upper surface, which is dark green and 

 shining, sparingly splashed with purple, exactly in the wav of the 

 Florida plant; its flowers, two or three inches broad, are borne 

 on erect stems eight to twelve inches above the leaves lying 

 on the surface of the water, or rising out of the water when 



crowded; their sepals and petals arc; acutish, the former being 

 purple without, but inward blending with yellow, and the petals, 

 as also the stamens, lemon-yellow. Its rhizome is scarcely 

 more than an inch in thickness and only a few inches in 

 length. A striking peculiarity of this species is its multiplica- 

 tion by means of runners, just in the way of the Strawberry. 

 Young plants are thus freely sent out from the rhizomes of 

 plants formed in this way the previous year, and from the 

 young plants themselves very often, being borne on white 

 spongy cords half an inch thick and one or two feet long. 

 These young plants usually flower after a few weeks, while 

 yet attached to the parent plants. Thus the flowering of the 

 species is prolonged from June till October. 



Pleasant are memories of fields of this plant, deep green 

 enlivened by abundant yellow blooms, seen by me in valleys 

 lying under serene golden skies and rimmed by blue sierras. 



N. elegans I take to be a denizen of the warm lowlands only, 

 ranging from the Waco River, in Texas, southward through 

 the Mexican Gulf state of Tamaulipas to that of Vera Cruz, at 

 least, perhaps much farther. In the shallower lagoons of the 

 lower Rio Grande — former channels of the river, now tortuous 

 lakes, isolated throughout most of the year from the river's 

 flow — it is so abundant as to cover large expanses of water. 



In the size of its leaves and in the size and shape of its flow- 

 ers this species is similar to the preceding, but the flower-stem 

 is perhaps taller and more slender. The outside of the sepals 

 is green, marked with fine broken lines of purple ; the petals 

 are of various shades of blue, while the centre of the flower, 

 the stamens and stigma, is pale yellow. Its rhizome is as 

 small-as that of A^. Mexicana, and it is propagated only, I think, 

 by means of seed. Unlike those of the species just mentioned, 

 these are very numerous and very small. 



I well remember my delight when first I came upon a lake 

 covered with this plant, whose flowers were opening in the 

 sunshine of the morning and seemed a reflection of the blue 

 vault bending over them. 



The habitat of Nymphaa ampla, as well as I can judge, 

 is more restricted. Certainly I have only met with it on or 

 near the table-land of northern Mexico in springs here and 

 there or in the limpid streams flowing from them. The strik- 

 ing peculiarity of this species, among those which are native 

 to America, is indicated by its specific name, its leaves being 

 a foot or more in breadth. These are purple beneath, with 

 prominent veins. The Mexican name of such Lily-pads is 

 lampazos, and they have given name to a town on the line of 

 the Mexican National in Nuevo Leon, whose raison d'etre 

 upon desert mesas is a vast spring occupied by this species, 

 and probably to a Texan town also. The flower of this species 

 is scarcely larger than that of the preceding, its petals being 

 white; the rhizome is somewhat thicker and longer. 



Nymphaa gracilis I only know in the region drained by the 

 Lerma, yet this is a wide region, extending from Aguas Cali- 

 entes and San Luis Potosi on the north to near the City of 

 Mexico on the east and south and to beyond Guadalajara on 

 the west. It is the fertile and populous heart of Mexico, the 

 region of frequent large cities and of green garden lands. 



As the train of the National Railroad nears the mountain 

 rim of the green valley of Mexico you see this Water Lily 

 whitening the surface of the fountain lake of the Lerma, new- 

 born from the snows of the Volcano of Toluca; and it is to be 

 found in lakes, natural and artificial, and sluggish streams 

 tributary to this great river far and near. Sometimes it yields 

 place in these waters to A". Mexicana; but it seems to be the 

 more common species here. The tall and slender flower-stalk 

 rising a foot above the water, and the rather narrow and acute 

 petals, give this plant the slender appearance indicated by its 

 specific name. Of the several species under consideration, 

 this one alone, as I believe, possesses any marked fragrance. 

 Its root-stock is a tuber rather than a rhizome — or such, at 

 least, it appears in autumn, after all the rest of the plant has 

 perished — an ovoid body one to three inches in length, with 

 thick ami hard outer shell, covered with bosses quite like a 

 Pine cone in appearance. In this state the plant is prepared to 

 hibernate and endure safely the droughts of the earlier months 

 of the year, when many of the shallow lakes which it inhabits 

 are dried up, and the land, where they lie tumbling about on 

 the surface, is even growing a crop of Wheat. 



This strange habit of the plant would seem to favor the suc- 

 cess of its cultivation, for its season of growth is but a few 

 months, and when they are matured the tubers can be stored 

 dry as well as potatoes. 



Thus, as we see, two while Water Lilies, a vellow one and a 

 blue one gladden the eyes of the botanical traveler in these 

 interesting regions. 



San Luis Potosi. C. G. Prillgle. 



