5oo 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 15, 1890. 



should be kept at some distance from each other, or, at least, that 

 earth once used for Violets should not be employed afterward 

 for Chrysanthemums. Remedies for the Chrysanthemum Ne- 

 matodes do not seem easy of application. A leaf, for exam- 

 ple, that has lost its green color, and is passing through 

 various shades of yellow to brown, may be alive with worms, 

 but they are out of the reach of any external application, while 

 lime or lime-water applied at the roots does not reach the 

 place where they are most active. 



Of course the leaves should all be removed and burned, and 

 so should whole plants when too far gone to be worthy of 

 more attention. If the dying leaves are left to fall and drift 

 into hot-beds, cold-frames and other places they may do much 

 to spread a serious trouble. 



Rutgers College. By r 011 D. Hillsted. 



Plant Notes. 



Some Recent Portraits. 



THE Gardeners' Chronicle of September 20th contains a 

 figure of a new Masdevallia, for which Mr. Rolfe proposes 

 the name of M. fulvescens. It is a native of New Granada, 

 whence it has been imported by F. Horsman & Co. It is re- 

 lated to M. infracta, but surpasses that species in the brighter 

 coloring of the perianth, which is described as " of a light buff 

 shade, passing into light purple-brown on the constricted sides 

 of the throat, the upper sepal deeper orange-yellow, shading 

 into purple-brown on the two lateral nerves." 



A colored portrait of a flowering branch of one of the 

 double-Howered forms of the Japanese Cherry, Primus Pseudo- 

 Cerasus, is the principal illustration in the issue of the Garden 

 of London for September 20th. It well represents one of the 

 most beautiful flowered of all small hardy trees. A number 

 of forms occur in cultivation, one of the most attractive being 

 that generally known as P. Watereri, in which the flowers are 

 delicately shaded with pink. The single-flowered form of this 

 tree is much less common in cultivation than the double- 

 flowered garden-varieties, and is less vigorous as it appears in 

 this country and not always perfectly hardy. 



A recent portrait of Staphylea Colchica in the Bulletin of 

 the Royal Tuscan Society of Horticulture reminds us of the 

 great value of this shrub as an ornamental plant. It is by far 

 the most beautiful of all the genus, and well worth a place in the 

 shrubbery. Moreover, it forces well, and of late years it has 

 been very largely used in both Paris and London for supplying 

 the winter markets with fragrant white flowers. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Gerbera Jamesoni.* 



THE genus Gerbera is composed of about twenty spe- 

 cies, most of them natives of South Africa. The one 

 figured on page 501 appears to be the first introduced into 

 gardens, having flowered for the first time in the spring of 

 last year at Kew, when it was figured and described in the 

 Botanical Magazine. In habit it is quite distinct, and its 

 flowers are so large, so attractive in color and so lasting 

 that it is certain to become popular with cultivators. 

 Plants of it have flowered at Kew all through the present 

 summer and are in flower still. They are grown in pots 

 in a cool, sunny greenhouse, and are planted in a mixture 

 of loam, peat and sand, and kept moderately moist. Last 

 year a plant was tried in a sunny border out-of-doors, 

 where it grew well and flowered all through the summer 

 and autumn. During the winter it was protected by a 

 slight covering of coal-ashes, but, in spite of this, the frost 

 killed it. Except, therefore, in places more favored than 

 the neighborhood of London, this plant is not likely to 

 prove hardy. In pots, however, it is perfectly satisfactory. 

 Hitherto no seeds have been matured by cultivated plants, 

 the only means of multiplying them being by dividing 

 the woody root-stock whenever a second growth ap- 

 pears. The plant is described by Sir Joseph Hooker as 

 follows : 



" All parts covered with soft hairs, and the mature leaves 

 clothed beneath with a snow-white tomentum. Leaves 

 numerous from the perennial root-stock, petiole six to eight 

 inches, erect; blade five to ten inches long by two to three 



*Bolus; Hook. f. Bot. Mag., t. 7087. 



inches broad, runcinately pinnatifid, with the margins of 

 the lobes undulate and cut into unequally sinuately toothed 

 obtuse or acute lobules. Scapes ten to eighteen inches 

 long, stout, naked. Head solitary, sub-erect, three to four 

 inches broad across the rays. Involucre three-quarters of 

 an inch long, campanulate, woolly, base intruded ; bracts 

 lanceolate, appressed. Flowers of the ray in one series, 

 about thirty, narrowly ligulate, three-toothed, dull yellow 

 beneath, bright orange or flame-colored above ; . . . disc- 

 flowers minute, of the same color as the ray-flowers." 



To this it may be added that the leaves are evergreen, 

 the flowers are rather nodding than otherwise, and they are 

 open all day whether it be sunny or clouded. Each one 

 lasts several weeks, and the color never loses its brightness 

 and intensity. 



This species was discovered in the Transvaal, near Bar- 

 berton, now famous for its gold mines, and sent to Kew 

 by the Curator of the Natal Botanic Gardens in 1888. Since 

 then several other species of Gerbera have been procured 

 from the same region, and these, judging from dried speci- 

 mens, are likely to prove as valuable in horticulture as that 



here figured. TIT TTT 



Kew. W, Watson. 



New Orchids. 



Masdevallia guttulata, Rolfe, is an interesting little 

 Masdevallia which has been in cultivation for some consider- 

 able time. The native country is unknown. It has flowered 

 in the Glasnevin Botanic Garden and also at Kew. It belongs 

 to the Tovarensis group, having triquetrous peduncles, which 

 bear two or three flowers in succession. They are about half 

 the size of those of M. Tovarensis, yellowish white in color, 

 spotted and slightly suffused with light purple. The name is 

 given in allusion to the numerous small spots. — Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, September 6th, p. 267. 



Cypripedium x Alfred, N. E. Br., is a hybrid raised in the 

 collection of Mr. D. O. Drewett, of Mill-on-Tyne, from Cypri- 

 pedium venustuni fertilized with the pollen of C. Philippinense. 

 It is quite intermediate in character between its parents. The 

 scape is single flowered at present. The sepals and petals 

 approach C. Philippinense in shape, while the lip is more like 

 that of C. venustum. It was awarded a first-class Certificate 

 by the Royal Horticultural Society on August 26th last. — Gar- 

 deners' Chronicle, August 30th, p. 252; September 13th, p. 294. 



Cypripedium x Alice, N. E. Br., was also raised in the 

 same collection as the preceding, from C. Stonei, fertilized 

 with the pollen of C. Spicerianum. It strongly resembles 

 the last named species in shape, except the lip, which is more 

 like that of C. Stonei. The scape bears two flowers, which are 

 pale and delicately colored. — Gardeners' Chronicle, August 

 30th, p. 252; September 13th, p. 294.. 



Cypripedium x Constance, N. E. Br., is another hybrid 

 raised in the same collection as the two preceding, from C. 

 Stonei, fertilized from the pollen of C. Curtisii. It is inter- 

 mediate in character between the parents, with the lip ap- 

 proaching C. Stonei in shape. The sepals are milk-white 

 tinged and nerved with purple, and the petals pale yellowish 

 with numerous small purple-brown spots. The scape is two- 

 flowered. — Gardeners' Chronicle, August 30th, p. 252; Septem- 

 ber 13th, p. 294. 



Kew. R. A. Rolfe. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 

 Dahlias. — A great show and a special conference of Dahlias 

 and Dahlia-growers were held at Chiswick last Tuesday. The 

 flowers were as good, as numerous and as varied as might be 

 expected in a country where the Dahlia has been more or less 

 a popular garden-flower since the beginning of the present 

 century. Mr. Shirley Hibberd opened the conference with a 

 most interesting extempore discourse on the origin of the 

 Florists' Dahlia. He startled the botanists by declaring that in 

 his opinion there was no good ground foradmitting more than 

 one original species, namely, D. variabilis, the other five or 

 six recognized by botanists being at most mere wild forms of 

 that plant. Mr. Hibberd is probably right ; but the same line 

 of argument would, if followed, inevitably lead to the whole- 

 sale reduction in the number of species of tuberous Begonias, 

 Rhododendrons, in fact of almost all genera which have dis- 

 covered an extraordinary proneness to vary under cultivation. 

 Although there is proof that the plants now known as Dahlias 



