September io, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



445 



sepals and petals, the color reminding" one, as Professor 

 Reichenbach once remarked, of the flowers of a pretty West 

 Indian Orchid — Rodriguezia secunda. The lip, which is in 

 reality more in the way of a spur, is of a crystalline whiteness, 

 occasionally tinged with pink at the tip, and is somewhat like 

 an oblong inflated bladder between the broad lateral sepals. 



There is no definite information to be found on record of 

 the precise origin of this species, but it is generally supposed 

 to have been first discovered by Mr. Stuart Low in Borneo as 

 long ago as 1862. It was not, however, until about 1874 

 that it found its way into cultivation, and was soon after 

 dowered for the first time in England in the nurseries of 

 Messrs. Henderson, of St. John's Wood, a circumstance which 

 led Reichenbach to name it in honor of that firm in due course. 



Being a native of Borneo, S. Hendersonianum should conse- 

 quently be grown in a tolerably warm and moist house. 

 Baskets which can be suspended from the roof, so as to afford 

 as much light as possible, are the best receptacles for the 

 plants, with a light compost of fresh sphagnum and a little 

 fibrous peat. Blocks or rafts may also be used, but if so, more 

 attention to watering will be necessary. At the approach of 

 summer, and during the entire hot season of the year, care 

 must be taken as to shading, for many of these fleshy leaved 

 Orchids are very susceptible to concentrated heat through glass. 



Isleworth] London, W. John l¥eclthe?'S. 



Schubertia grandifolia. — A plant of this set in the open ground 

 in late June is now profusely in bloom. It is a very strong 

 grower, with semi-woody white stems. The leaves are lanceo- 

 late, some five inches long by three inches wide, and as they 

 mature, are spotted brown. The figure by Mr. Faxon in 

 Garden and Forest (page 369), while accurately repro- 

 ducing the form of the plant, cannot, of course, give a 

 complete expression of the beauty of the pure white 

 flowers with the brownish calyx. The flowers are of 

 very firm substance and of smooth surface, except just over 

 the constricted throat, where they are furnished with nu- 

 merous fine hairs one-fourth to three-eighths inches long, 

 set horizontally. The office of these hairs would seem to 

 be the brushing of the pollen from visiting insects. The 

 organs of reproduction are all concealed in the swelling under 

 the throat, and no color of anthers or stigmas relieves the 

 white of the flower. As this plant seems to grow as well in the 

 open air as under glass, it is likely to prove a desirable addi- 

 tion to open air vines (climbing by twining stems), as the ap- 

 pearance of foliage and flowers is pleasing. The foxy odor of 

 the young foliage is less disagreeable in the open air than it is 

 under glass. When the plant is in bloom the somewhat heavy, 

 fruity odor of the flowers will perfume a large house. A well 

 grown plant will cover a space of say three feet by twenty. It 

 is readily propagated by cuttings or seed, from the latter of 

 which it will come into bloom in from twelve to fifteen months. 

 Elizabeth, N.J. G. 



Gordonia Altamaha (pubescens).— This is one of the most beauti- 

 ful of flowering trees, and just now it isin full flower here. It has 

 been blooming for several weeks and will continue to do so 

 until frost stops it. Philadelphia is fortunate in havinganum- 

 ber of good specimens of this rare tree. It is to be found not 

 only in private collections, but there are several in Fairmount 

 Park. The original tree in Philadelphia is the one planted by 

 Bartram himself in the historic garden in West Philadelphia 

 which still bears his name. This tree was supposed to be 

 dead, and in fact it did die to the ground, but on a recent visit 

 to it I observed a sucker of several feet in length from a por- 

 tion of the stump beneath the ground. It would be a most 

 desirable thing to save this remnant of the parent tree, but as 

 the place is now but little more than an open common, its pre- 

 servation is doubtful. 



In the garden of William De Hart, Woodland Avenue, Phila- 

 delphia, stands a fine example of this tree. It is, perhaps, 

 twenty-five feet high. It is not a perfect specimen because 

 somewhat crowded by other trees. It is, however, doubly 

 interesting because raised by layering a branch of the original 

 tree in Bartram's Garden. At this time of the year it often 

 displays as many as 200 expanded flowers at once. The large, 

 single white, Camellia-like flowers are extremely beautiful. 



How far north this tree would thrive I do not know. I can 

 say that in the hardest winters we have here it is never injured 

 in the slightest degree, showing that it can be planted much 

 further north than this. 



The more tender species, 67. Lasianthus, is thriving with us. 

 Our plants have flowered profusely this year, though but two 

 to three feet high. While very pretty, the flowers are not much 

 more than halt die size of those on G. Altamaha. 



Germantown, Pa. Joseph Meehatt. 



The I r ore>t. 



The General Condition of the North American 

 Forests. — 1. 



THE article which follows is the first part of a trans- 

 lation of Chapter 1. of Dr. Heinrich Mayr's work, " The 

 Forests of North America." Dr. Mayr paid two visits to 

 this country, and his studies among our trees were made 

 primarily for the purpose of estimating their probable 

 economic value for introduction into German forests. It 

 will be seen, however, that he became interested in the 

 problems of forestry, which Americans must solve for 

 themselves. It is well that we should know how these 

 problems present themselves to the eye of a skilled observer 

 from abroad, and although we may dissent from some of 

 his conclusions and question a few of his statements, 

 his general view of the subject in its broader lines will be 

 accepted as correct by thoughtful readers. We hope to 

 give the remainder of this chapter in an early number : 



When the first European landed in the new hemisphere, 

 an immeasurable area of forest lay before him: Un- 

 broken, undisturbed, it stretched from the southernmost 

 part of Florida to the coast of Labrador, through thirty-five 

 degrees of latitude, and from the Atlantic coast to the borders 

 of the prairie, fully twenty degrees of longitude. If we reckon 

 the average length as twenty-five degrees of latitude and the 

 average breadth as twenty degrees of longitude, we see that 

 this primitive forest covered an area ten times as great as that 

 of the German Empire. What exists of it to-day we can only 

 estimate. Perhaps, however, a tenth part of the original area 

 of primeval forest, or almost as much as the whole extent of 

 the German Empire, still remains. In a hasty journey through 

 this territory one receives the impression that it is almost all 

 forest. With the exception of a few states, the forest is so 

 conspicuous that the farms seem to occupy only a small part 

 of the area. But a close examination of this forest reveals the 

 fact that not more than a third part of it really deserves the 

 name of forest ; two-thirds are only scattered saplings, or a 

 collection of isolated, gnarled, blighted trees, sometimes the 

 last of their race. 



The primeval forest grew in all soils, on the mountains as 

 well as in the plain. No rock in the Alleghany Mountains was 

 too steep to nourish single trees in its fissures ; no soil of the 

 plain was so poor and stony that it did not support a stately 

 forest. Only swampy lowlands covered with water for the 

 greater part of the year were without trees. This fact ought 

 to be recorded for future generations ; for to-day the forest 

 in many places has been destroyed so completely that one 

 might well doubt whether it ever existed. 



Fifty years hence one who travels through the southern 

 Pine-belt of the Gulf States will scarcely believe that the vast 

 desert of pure snow-white sand driven hither and thither by 

 the wind, once supported the most magnificent Pine forest in 

 the world ; no one will believe it possible that the bare, stonv, 

 steep slopes of the Alleghanies were once covered with a forest 

 of broad leaved trees unrivaled in its variety and luxuriance. 

 In fifty years it will seem incredible that the vast swamps of 

 northern Wisconsin and Michigan were once covered with a 

 thick growth of trees, and that forests of White Pine, cen- 

 turies old, once swept about them. 



If we turn toward the west and again in imagination pass over 

 fifty years, we see a beneficent forest flourishing there, brought 

 into existence by man on a plain which was once pronounced 

 an almost useless desert. The forest was planted because the 

 absolute necessity for it was felt. This western plantation 

 thrives under human protection ; but it is a misfortune that so 

 many worthless kinds of wood have been planted, for the 

 European species, from the young growth of which much 

 was expected, are unsatisfactory as they approach maturity. It 

 is to be regretted, too, that the production of (ire-wood has 

 been sought rather than the production of lumber by means 

 of a more open system of planting ; for, in case of necessity, 

 timber-trees always make the best lire-wood. 



Let us go still farther west. In fifty years it will be incon- 

 ceivable that California, the beautiful fruit-garden of the 

 Union, was once treeless. Amid magnificent forests of 

 Australian Eucalyptus and Acacia the visitor will be in- 

 clined to doubt that he is really in America. The hard, 

 sun-baked plains have been transformed into a sub-tropical 

 garden under the influence of this delightful climate. But 

 it has been an expensive task to dam up the turbid streams 

 which pour down from the mountains during the rainy season, 



