September 17, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



45i 



a stalk about seven to ten feet in height, surmounted with a 

 large panicle of flowers of a chrome-yellow. The foliage is of 

 a glaucous green. 



Krameria cancscens, also a denizen of the Desert wilds, is a 

 low shrub about two feet high, bearing in spring-time a profu- 

 sion of showy magenta colored flowers. 



Lceselia tenuifolia is a showy plant, of a span to a foot in 

 height, which produces an abundance of flowers of a color 

 somewhat difficult to describe — something between a poppy- 

 red and a carmine, and very brilliant. This is related to the 

 Phloxes and Gilias, and is equally worthy of cultivation as any 

 of them. It is found abundant on the table-lands bordering 

 the Colorado Desert on the west, in Lower California, and a few- 

 plants stray north of the boundary into this county. The alti- 

 tude of its habitat is from four to six thousand feet. This herb 

 is also credited with valuable medicinal properties, being held 

 in high repute by the Indians and Mexicans, who use it in 

 various diseases, especially in fevers. 



In the mountains of Southern and Lower California there is 

 a peculiarly beautiful form of Calocliortus luteus, with flowers 

 an inch and a half across of deep lemon-yellow, with a maroon- 

 purple spot near the base of the petals. The glandural area 

 is also of a maroon-purple, the space between being occupied 

 with numerous lemon-yellow hairs. The scape is one to two 

 feet in height. The plant is rare, growing very scattering in 

 rocky places. 



Mimuhts brcvipes has large, showy lemon-yellow flowers, 

 and is one of our most abundant annuals. 



Mimnlus glutinosa is a shrub rarely more than two feet high, 

 and produces in spring an immense mass of large buff-yellow 

 flowers an inch and a half long, over an inch across, with two 

 orange spots in the centre of the flower, the tube of the corolla 

 white. 



Dicentra chrysantha is a fine perennial plant, with delicate 

 glaucous green, finely divided foliage, and producing a tall 

 spike of flowers of a bright gamboge-yellow. It is not 

 especially showy, but quite noticeable, and has long been in 

 cultivation in Europe, where it is still in good demand. Like 

 many others of our California wild flowers that have met 

 with success in Europe, it still seems to remain unrecognized 

 in eastern America. 



Chanactis arlemiscpfolia is a rank growing, rather conspicu- 

 ous and pretty annual with us, attaining a height of 

 three or four feet, with wide-spreading branches, bearing 

 numerous white composite flowers in balls an inch in diameter. 



Sphtzralcea Emoryi is a half-shrubby plant, one to five feet 

 high, closely related to the Abutilons, with foliage of a sage- 

 green, and showy, flame-scarlet flowers. It is easily cultivated 

 and a very desirable plant. 



Thamnosma montanum is a low shrub found on the moun- 

 tains bounding the Colorado Desert on the west. It has a very 

 pungent, spicy odor. The yellowish bark of the nearly leafless 

 plant is prettily set off by the numerous prune-purple flowers, 

 which fade to white. 



Astragalus Purshii, var. (?) coccineits, Parry {West American 

 Scientist, vi., 9-10), is one of the most beautiful and showy of the 

 genus, producinga profusion of handsome scarlet flowers. It is 

 confined to the same region as the last, and is probably 

 the last plant to receive its name at the hands of the late 

 Dr. C. C. Parry. It is scarcely a span high, the stems and 

 foliage covered with a dense white tomentum, and forming a 

 rather broad, compact mass, which wonderfully enlivens the 

 rocky or sandy places where it grows with its large and showy 

 flowers. It is the most worthy species of the genus in South- 

 ern California for extended cultivation. 



Monardella lanceolata is a showy annual of our mountains, 

 producing masses of bright Phlox-purple flowers. It is six 

 inches to a foot high, branching, with a strong but pleasant 

 Pennyroyal perfume, and is well worthy of cultivation. 



Orcutt, California. C R. Orctllt. 



A Suggestion from Nature. 



/RESERVING planters can often find instructive hints as to the 

 ^-^ arrangement of trees and shrubs by studying the ways in 

 which they naturally group themselves in certain soils and ex- 

 posures. Before our camp to-day lies a small island, which 

 may be taken as the type of very many similar ones in the 

 " park region " of Minnesota, and any landscape-gardener who 

 has a littte island to cover with foliage could gather some 

 fresh ideas for his work by taking note how Nature has done 

 hers. 



The beach of the island is sand on clay. The interior rises 

 some ten feet above the water and is gravelly. In the shallow 

 water are Bullrushes; dense near the shore, and the shore it- 

 self is bordered with a circle of pale Willow-bushes. Inside 



the Willows is a circle of Alders, a little taller; then a circle of 

 Birches, with occasional dark spires of Fir; then Elms, with a 

 central dome of Norway Pine. 



Other islands of the type, but smaller, have circles of 

 Spiraea, Willow and Maple, with a group of Elms or a single 

 drooping Elm forming the dome. Some have a single White 

 Pine in the centre; some a group of Firs or a White Spruce. 



It should be borne in mind that Fir, Spruce and White Pine 

 require damp subsoil, and in nature are brushy underneath, 

 while the Norway Pine grows best on dry ground, and as soon 

 as a roof is formed the lower branches drop off and a yellow 

 carpet of the leaves is spread underneath. 



Caribou Lake, Minn. //. /?. Ayres. 



A New Enemy to Willows. 



"P ARLY in the present year I called attention to the imported 

 -*— ' Elm-borer (Zeuzera pyrina), which is now known to ex- 

 tend from New York City to beyond Newark, as a danger to 

 our Elm. The present season has brought into notice, as a 

 danger to Willows, another imported insect, this time a beetle, 

 known as CryptorhyncJms Lapathi. It is one of the snout 

 beetles of which the white Pine weevil is a shining example, 

 and the injury to Willow is in appearance much like the injury 

 to Pine. The beetle is black in general color, about five-six- 

 teenths of an inch long and nearly half as wide, with the ends 

 of the wing-covers a rich pale pink, an oblique shoulder stripe 

 of the same color and the thorax also with pinkish lines above. 

 There are five tufts of elevated black scales on the thorax and 

 a linear series on each wing-cover, which are quite prominent 

 and readily identify the insect. Altogether it is rather a pretty 

 species, the legs being also banded with pink. The beetle 

 makes its appearance in June and July, and lays its eggs in 

 the branches, and, sometimes, also the stems of young 

 Willows, apparently very close together. The larva? hatch 

 the same fall, burrow into the wood until the branches are 

 honeycombed in every direction and change to a pupa in May 

 or June. Samples of infested branches shown me contain 

 burrows as closely run as the wood will sustain, and in the 

 neighborhood of Newark, lam informed, many Willow clumps 

 have been entirely killed off. 



The first notice of this species in America was by Mr. Wm. 

 Jiilich, of New York, who in 1887 published the appearance of 

 the species near Hoboken, New Jersey, in Willows there, and 

 mentioned that isolated specimens had been found previously 

 in Hoboken and on Staten Island. Since that time it has been 

 found more frequently, and in the summer of 1889 a single speci- 

 men was taken near Newark, where previously none had been 

 found. Early in 1890 the Newark collectors noticed the dying 

 Willows and bred numerous specimens of the beetle from in- 

 fested branches. In Staten Island it has also increased and 

 multiplied and bids fair to become a serious pest. In Europe 

 the species is a Poplar feeder, and probably this tree will not be 

 exempt here when the insect is thoroughly domesticated. 



There is only one treatment possible for this pest, and that 

 is cutting all infested branches and burning them to prevent 

 the maturing of the beetles. The cutting should be done 

 early in spring, when the infested branches are most easily 

 recognizable, and the remedy should be thoroughly applied. 

 A tree once attacked will be eventually killed if the beetles are 

 allowed to breed freely or if the knife is not thoroughly used. 

 It is a small measure of comfort to know that the insect has 

 brought with it a parasite which may eventually succeed in 

 obtaining control ; but at all events we seem to have fairly 

 domesticated with us another emigrant which may prove as 

 serious a pest as the Elm-leaf beetle. 



Rutgers College. J Jill I>. Smith. 



Buildings should not stand alone in open ground, lest they 

 have the effect of spots, and appear foreign to the nature 

 around them and not as if they grew in it. It is in the highest 

 degree important that they should be in keeping with the land- 

 scape. Buildings within a park arc only parts of a whole ; 

 and they must be designed with just as much regard to the 

 view of them as to the view from them. A certain irregu- 

 larity in park buildings is to lie desired, as more conformable 

 with nature and more picturesque. Buildings half hidden be- 

 hind each other, large and small windows in the same wall, 

 door-ways unsymmctrically placed, projecting arid retreating 

 angles, now and then a high bare wall with a rich cornice, is- 

 olated towers, widely overhanging roofs and balconies unsym- 

 metrically set ; in short, everywhere a striking but far from in- 

 harmonious irregularity, which expresses imagination, while 

 yet the motive for every departure from regularity either ap- 

 pears at once, or may be divined. — From Pilckler-Muskau's 

 " Andeutungen fiber Landschafts-g&rtnerei" 1834. 



