October 8, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



485 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1890. 

 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles:— The Tupelo Tree. (Willi illustration.) — Landscape Art 



and Decorative Gardening 485 



Slnubs which Endure Drought Professor J. L. Budd. 486 



J udging the Quality of Apples T. H. Hoskins. 487 



Effect of Forest-Management on Orchards. .. Professor Byron D. Halsted. 487 



The White Pine Louse. (With figures.) Professor Clarence M. Weed. 488 



New or Little Known Plants : — Leucophvllum Texanum. (With figure.) 



C. S. S. 488 



Cultural Department: — Vineyard Notes E.P.Powell. 490 



Timely Hints for Fruit Growers 490 



Hybrid Violas 492 



Preparation for Winter IV. H. Taflin. 492 



Spanish and English Iris, Iris reticulata, Montbretia crocosmifeflora, 



J. N. G. 492 



Nymphsea Devoniensis W. 7'ricker. 493 



Figs in the O pen Air Joseph Meehan. 493 



Clematis paniculata T. D. Hatfield. 493 



Correspondence : — The Condition and Future of the American Forests, 



H. J. Elwes. 493 



Naturalization of American Conifers in Belgium Alfred Wesmael. 494 



An Artificial Garden Effect W. E. Hill. 494 



The Fay Currant E. Williams. 494 



Recent Publications 495 



Meetings of Societies: — Horticulture in New Jersey J. 495 



Notes 495 



Illustrations :— The White Pine Louse : Oviparous Female, Fig. 60. Winged 



Male, Fig. 61. a, Eggs on Leaf ; b, Egg, Magnified, Fig. 62 488 



Leucophyllum Texanum, Fig. 63 489 



The Tupelo Tree (Nyssa aquatica) in Eastern Massachusetts 491 



The Tupelo Tree. 



THE forests of eastern America contain few trees more 

 interesting to the botanist or of greater ornamental 

 value than the Tupelo, Pepperidge, Sour Gum or Water 

 Gum, as one of the American representatives of the small 

 genus Nyssa is popularly called in different parts of the 

 country. This genus was so named by Linnaeus for a 

 water nymph, because the species known to him, inhab- 

 itants of our far southern states, grow usually in shallow 

 ponds or deep swamps overflowed for a considerable part 

 of each year. Its nearest American relatives are the Cor- 

 nels, from which Nyssa differs principally in its five instead 

 of four-parted flowers, which are rarely perfect, but pro- 

 duce their male and female organs separately, while the 

 flowers of the Cornels are perfect, and, in its alternate 

 leaves, the leaves of our Cornels being opposite except in 

 the case of a single species. 



The distribution of the genus is exceptional and inter- 

 esting. Three species, or four, according to the opinion of 

 some excellent observers, inhabit different parts of eastern 

 North America from Maine to Texas. One species, a tree 

 of some size, occurs at considerable elevations on the Sik- 

 kim Himalaya, and one or two little known species are 

 found on the mountains of Java. The genus has no repre- 

 sentative, strange to say, in the flora of China or Japan, 

 where so many of the types of eastern America occur ; and 

 paleontologists have not yet brought to light any indication 

 that the ancestors of existing species inhabited a larger 

 part of the earth's surface than these species do at present. 



This is not the place, and it is not our intention, to dis- 

 cuss at this time the limits of the different American spe- 

 cies, which have puzzled botanists ever since they have 

 known them, the confusion beginning with Linnaeus him- 

 self, who included two very distinct species under his 

 original description. It is our purpose merely to call atten- 

 tion to one of the species still little known or appreciated 

 by planters as an ornamental tree. This is the Nyssa, 

 which is generally distributed through all the eastern por- 

 tions of the United States south of the southern part of the 

 state of Maine and central Michigan. Nyssa aquatica 

 appears to be the correct botanical name for this tree, 



although it is only in the extreme south that it grows in 

 water. Near the coast of the northern states it always 

 grows by the borders of swamps in low, moist ground ; and 

 in the interior, especially on the lower slopes of the high 

 Alleghany Mountains, where it attains its greatest size, 

 it is found at considerable distances from the water-courses 

 associated with the Oaks, Magnolias, Hemlocks, Hickories 

 and Ashes which form the principal part of the forest- 

 growth. Llere the Tupelo grows sometimes to a height of 

 considerably more than a hundred feet, with a tall, stout 

 trunk three or four feet in diameter, and short slender 

 brandies, contracted in their development by its neighbors 

 in the forest. Near the coast it is always a much smaller 

 tree, especially in the southern states, and it is rare to find 

 it more than fifty feet high except in the mountain forests 

 or in those of the lower Ohio valley — a region of excep- 

 tional and extraordinary tree-growth. 



The habit of this tree as we see it near the coast is very 

 different from that which it assumes when growing in the 

 dense forest, for, as it grows near the coast in low, wet 

 land, which produces generally few trees, the individuals 

 have sufficient room for the development of their branches, 

 which are long and nearly horizontal, producing a fiat, 

 often umbrella-shaped, top. This is the familiar form in 

 which the Tupelo is seen in the neighborhood of this city, 

 either along the shores of Long Island Sound, where it 

 abounds, or the New Jersey coast. 



The leaves vary much in size and somewhat in outline 

 on trees in different parts of the country, the largest and 

 broadest being produced on the Alleghany Mountains, and 

 the smallest in the Florida Pine-barrens. The flowers in 

 the different forms vary, however, very little. The stami- 

 nate flowers are produced in dense clusters, while the 

 female flowers are borne two to fourteen together at the 

 summit of an elongated peduncle. The blue-black fruit, 

 of which rarely more than two are developed from a clus- 

 ter of flowers, varies somewhat in shape, and very con- 

 siderably in size, in different parts of the country, as do the 

 seeds, which have been depended on to divide the species. 

 But the botanist, with a large series of specimens gathered 

 from trees growing under the various climatic conditions 

 to which this species is subjected, finds it a difficult task to 

 distinguish characters which can be depended on to estab- 

 lish varieties even which do not pass imperceptiblv one 

 into another. 



The Tupelo was introduced into England in 1808 by 

 John Lyon, an English plant-collector who traveled widely 

 in North America early in the century. It was doubtless 

 sent earlier to France, as it is hardly possible that Michaux 

 could have failed to introduce such a distinct and beautiful 

 tree into the plantations of his native land. Whether this 

 is true or not it is certain that no American tree is now 

 more rarely seen in Europe, and a really fine specimen 

 outside of America is not easily recalled. This is due, 

 perhaps, to the difficulty which is always experienced in 

 transplanting this tree after it has been allowed to 

 remain undisturbed for any length of time or after 

 it has attained to any considerable size. The roots 

 are remarkably stout and long, with few rootlets, so 

 that the trees are never easy to move unless they 

 have been grown in the nursery and specially pre- 

 pared for transplanting. It is easily raised from seed, 

 however, the seedlings are easily transplanted, and if they 

 are set while still young where the trees are to grow per- 

 manently, no difficulty will be experienced with them. 

 Even large plants dug up in the swamps can be successfully 

 moved if extraordinary care is taken in the operation, but 

 for the ordinary cultivator it is best to depend on small, 

 nursery-grown plants when they can he obtained. 



The Tupelo should be more often seen in ornamental 

 plantations than it is at present. The habit of this tree 

 when allowed sufficient room in which to grow is striking 

 and interesting and quite unlike that assumed by any other of 

 our hardy trees. The foliage is abundant and lustrous, and in 

 the autumn it assumes a brilliancy and splendor of coloring 



