October 29, 1890. 



Garden and Forest. 



525 



southward to Alabama and Arkansas. It was cultivated as 

 long ago as the middle of the last century; but when found 

 now in European gardens it appears to be grown under the 

 name of H. Kalmianum. It has inhabited the Arnold Arbo- 

 retum for several years, having been first received from 

 Woolson & Co., of Passaic, New Jersey. It is perfectly 

 hardy here, grows rapidly in ordinary garden soil, and 

 flowers regularly and profusely every summer. 



H. de?isifloru?n f (Fig. 67) is a rarer and less known plant 

 than H. prolificum, to which it is closely related. It attains 

 a height varying from two to six feet, with stout stems di- 

 vided above into many slender erect branches covered 

 with leaves which are linear-lanceolate, with slightly revo- 

 lute margins, and which are tipped with short stout mucros. 

 The numerous flowers, which are rarely more than half an 

 inch in diameter, are crowded in broad, compact cymes. 

 The capsule is short and remarkably slender, and serves, 

 as do the smaller flowers, to distinguish this species from 

 H. prolificum, which it often resembles in certain New Jer- 

 sey forms in the shape and breadth of the leaves, which are 

 sometimes almost as broad as those of that species, and 

 which have sometimes caused it to be considered a variety 

 of it. 



H. densiflorum is found from the Pine-barrens of New 

 Jersey to Florida, Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas. It was 

 received at the Arboretum last year from Kelsey Brothers, 

 now of Linville, North Carolina, and flowered sparingly 

 in August of the same year and profusely during the pres- 

 ent season. It promises to be perfectly hardy and to be- 

 come an interesting and beautiful garden-plant. C. S. S. 



Some Recent Portraits. 



THE October number of the Botanical Magazine contains a 

 portrait of Nepenthes Curtissii (/. 7138), a tall- growing, stout, 

 Bornean species of comparatively recent introduction. The 

 pitchers, which are the only ornament in these plants, are de- 

 scribed as eight to ten inches long by two wide, nearly cylin- 

 drical, but narrowed toward the base, yellow-green in color 

 and mottled and marbled with red-brown. The fringe which 

 surrounds the orifice is half an inch broad, brown, and faintly 

 striated with a denticulate margin. 



There is a good figure of Vanda Amesiana (t. 7139), already 

 noticed more than once in this journal. The native country 

 of this handsome plant, Cambodia, is now first made known. 

 The delicious fragrance of the flowers, their chief charm, is 

 hardly sufficiently emphasized ; and the editor has overlooked 

 the fact that the species was named in honor of an American 

 Orchid-lover whose collection of these plants is not surpassed 

 by any other. 



There are figures of Iris Danfordice (t. 7140), a pretty yellow- 

 flowering species of the Cilician Taurus, and of Clerodendron 

 panicnlatum {t. 7141), a widely distributed shrub in eastern 

 Asia, " and a great ornament whether in the jungle or in gar- 

 dens"; and of a showy East India Orchid, Saccolabium belli- 

 num (t. 7142). 



In the Gardeners' Chronicle of October 4th there is a 

 figure of Lilium Henryii, the new Chinese Lily, which re- 

 sembles the Tiger Lily in the shape and size of the flowers. 

 It has, however, broad leaves like those of the Japanese L. 

 auratum, and does not produce bulblets in their axils like the 

 Tiger Lily. The perianth-segments are less imbricated than 

 those of that species, and are bright yellow, with a few minute 

 reddish brown dots and a few large basal papillae. This is one 

 of the many interesting plants discovered by Dr. Henry in 

 western China. L. Henryii flowered at Kew during the past 

 summer, bulbs having been sent by the Superintendent of the 

 Hong-Kong Botanic Garden. 



The colored plate in The Garden (London) of October 4th is 

 devoted to Gardenia Staiileyana, a beautiful plant from west 

 tropical Africa rarely seen in gardens, although it was intro- 

 duced early in the century through the efforts of the Earl of 

 Derby, who sent a collector to explore upper Guinea botanic- 

 ally. It is difficult to understand why such a desirable plant 

 should ever have been allowed to disappear from gardens, for 

 certainly few stove plants produce more beautiful or more 

 fragrant flowers. These are nine inches long, with a long 



^Hypericum densiflorum, Pursh, " Fl. Am. Sept.," 376. — De Candolle, "Prodr.," 

 '•> 547- — Coulter, Bit. Gazette, xi., 84. — Watson & Coulter, "Gray s Man. N. States," 

 ed. 7, 93. 



H galiolides, Pursh, /. c, 376, not Lamarck. 



H. prolificum, var. densiflorum, " Gray's Man. N. States," ed. 5, 84. 



slender tube and five-parted limb fully three inches across 

 when the flower is fully expanded. The exterior of the tube 

 is deep, rich, vinous purple, while the upper or inner surface 

 of the limb is pure white, covered more or less completely with 

 oblong dots arranged closely in lines, the interior of the corolla- 

 tube being of the same color as the exterior. The texture of the 

 Mowers is thick and fleshy, and they emit a powerful fra- 

 grance. Three other species of west African Gardenias have 

 been cultivated at different times, and all are desirable stove 

 plants. Being natives of one of the hottest and moistest re- 

 gions of the world, they only thrive in the stove, where the}' 

 require rich soil and abundant water and sunlight. 



Judged by the beautifully colored plate published in 

 the issue of the Revue Horticole which appeared on the 

 1st of October, an east Asia herbaceous vine, discovered 

 by the Abbe" David and described by Carriere as Vitisrutilans, 

 must be an exceedingly attractive plant. Its principal beauty 

 is due to the brilliant bright red subspinescent hairs which 

 beset the stems and appear also on the buds, tendrils and on 

 the principal veins of the young leaves, which are covered on 

 the lower surface with rose colored pubescence. The mature 

 leaves are deeply cordate at the base, scarcely lobed and pro- 

 vided with stout spinulose teeth ; they are large and thick, 

 lustrous on the upper and glaucous on the lower surface. 

 The male flowers, which are the only ones described, the 

 female plant not being in cultivation, are produced in large 

 clusters and are bright red and nearly scentless. Vitis rutilans 

 is one of the earliest of all the vines grown about Paris to 

 begin its growth in the spring, and the young shoots are de- 

 veloped before any of the wine Grapes show any indication of 

 starting into growth. According to Monsieur Carriere, " Vitis 

 rutilans, to speak generally, has, as an ornamental plant, two 

 distinct phases, one vernal, due to the brilliant coloring of its 

 parts, the other to its large rich foliage, which it produces until 

 the appearance of frost, and which makes it one of the most 

 ornamental plants yet known, especially for covering arbors 

 or ruins, or tor hiding walls and other unsightly objects." 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



AN exhibition of fruit grown in the British Isles was held on 

 the first three days of this week in the Guildhall, London. 

 The place was as novel as the exhibition was imposing; proba- 

 bly in no exhibition hall or tent in England or elsewhere has 

 there been so extensive and meritorious a collection of ap- 

 ples and pears. There were 4,500 dishes of fruit, and thev 

 occupied 7,000 square feet of tabling. Notwithstanding the 

 reported failure of fruit crops this year the exhibits were gen- 

 erally excellent. Dr. Hogg, the venerable master in fruit 

 knowledge, declared that "in no fruiterer's shop in London, 

 where the best obtainable specimens are procured from 

 various parts of the world, could such apples be found as 

 those represented in hundreds of dishes at this exhibition." 



With a view to promote the general cultivation of hardy 

 fruit the Company of Fruiterers of the City of London decided 

 to offer prizes for collections of fruit to be exhibited at the 

 Guildhall, and nearly a thousand pounds were set apart by the 

 Company to cover expenses. No charge for admission was 

 made ; on the contrary, tickets of invitation were distributed 

 freely. The result was that about 50,000 people visited the 

 exhibition. 



Exhibitors were classified in such a way as to make the com- 

 petition as fair as possible. As growers in some portions of 

 England are much less favored by nature than are others, the 

 country was divided into three zones — namely, northern, 

 south-western and south-eastern. There were also sections for 

 cottagers and for small tenant farmers, while nurserymen 

 were separated from amateurs and gardeners. Another 

 special section consisted of growers within a radius of seven 

 miles from the Mansion House. 



Amongst the best of the apples exhibited were Gravenstein, 

 represented by many dishes of large, well colored fruit ; Rib- 

 ston Pippin, good average fruit, much better than the unfa- 

 vorable summer could have been expected to produce; War- 

 ner's King, Stirling Castle and Peasgood's Nonsuch. Of the 

 last named there were many magnificent examples, and a dish 

 of them shown by Mr. S. Barlow, of Manchester, famous as an 

 Auricula-grower, was declared the finest dish of apples in the 

 exhibition. There were five fruits in this dish, and they 

 weighed nine pounds two ounces. 



Pears were not of such uniform excellence as apples, 

 although there were no really poor samples. The best of them 

 included such proved sorts as Marie Louise, Beurre" Superfin, 



