536 



Garden and Forest. 



[November 5, 1890. 



A Bit of Forgotten History. 



OUR valued correspondent, Herr Carl Bolle, of Berlin, 

 recently published in Gartenflora an interesting article 

 called "When Did the Weymouth Pine First Appear in 

 Europe ? " Weymouth Pine is the name commonly given in 

 Europe to our White Pine {Pimis Strobus), and records the 

 well ascertained fact that it was first made generally known in 

 Europe by Lord Weymouth at the beginning of the last cen- 

 tury. Specimens were brought to England in 1705, and almost 

 immediately Lord Weymouth devoted himself to the cultiva- 

 tion of the tree, which from that day to this has been exten- 

 sively planted in different parts of central Europe. 



Herr Bolle has no wish to strip the memory of Lord Wey- 

 mouth of the credit which thus attaches to it. His object is 

 simply to show that, although this nobleman first popularized 

 the White Pine, it had, contrary to the common belief, been 

 seen in Europe much earlier. On general principles, he ex- 

 plains, it is unlikely that its importation can have been so long 

 delayed, for other North America conifers had been introduced 

 much sooner, as, for instance, the Bald Cypress before 1640 

 and the Red Cedar before 1664. Moreover, there is actual 

 evidence of an early although merely passing attempt to culti- 

 vate the White Pine in Europe. 



The first modern scientific treatise on conifers is the De ar- 

 boribus coniferis, resiniferis aliis quoque nonnullis seiiipitema 

 fronde virentibus, which appeared at Paris in 1553, and was 

 written by Pierre Belon, a physician and a traveler of wide ex- 

 perience. In this book, in the chapter headed " Pinaster," there 

 may be found, suggests Dr. Bolle, a sure indication that Pinus 

 Strobus, as well as Thuya occidentalis, were already growing in 

 at least one garden of France. Inspired by the maritime 

 achievements of the Spanish and Portuguese, and attracted by 

 the rich fishing grounds of our northern coasts, French ex- 

 plorations of America began early in the sixteenth century. 

 Even sailors were interested by the immense and varied 

 forests of our coast regions, and, although botanical knowledge 

 in the modern sense had hardly yet been born, there was every- 

 where in Europe a keen desire to find new plants with medicinal 

 virtues. It is recorded that a disease which afflicted, among 

 other less popular patients, Pope Leo X., Francis I. and Ulrich 

 Von Hutten, was treated with a medicine in which sarsaparil la 

 was mingled, with a decoction from the " Canadian Tree-of- 

 life" {Arbor vita) and other exotic extracts. At this same 

 period navigators were bringing from Canada great packages 

 of a white, very light wood, somewhat spongy in texture and 

 still covered with its bark. This they grandiloquently called 

 the " second Tree-of-life," loudly praising its medicinal pro- 

 perties. After investigating it, Belon pronounced it useless, 

 and, indeed, harmful, as likely to supersede really valuable 

 medicaments. He expressed amazement that other physicians 

 should have allowed themselves to be deceived by impostors 

 to such a point that they had in their turn imposed upon even 

 King Francis himself, and declared the high-priced stuff to be 

 merely " Pinaster wood." By this name is not to be understood 

 what we now call Pinaster, Pinus Pinaster, the tree which 

 grows so plentifully on the landes of south-western France. 

 But Belon's Pinaster, says Herr Bolle, was a tree which he 

 thoroughly understood and has accurately described — P. 

 Cembra, the familiar Pine of Switzerland, and long supposed 

 to be the only European Pine whose leaves grow in groups of 

 five. Misled by the arrangement of the leaves and by 

 analogies of habitat, Belon seems to have thought he recog- 

 nized this tree again in a small cultivated specimen which was 

 shown him as having grown from seed in one of the royal 

 gardens at Fontainebleau. His description runs as follows : 

 " At Fontainebleau there stands, with evergreen needles, a 

 little Pinaster-tree. When I saw it I recognized it as such at the 

 first glance, by its stem as well as by its branches, its bark and 

 other signs. This specimen has reached man's estate in five 

 years. Its branches stand around the stem in just the same ar- 

 rangement as on the Spruce and the Fir {sapino et abiete), cross- 

 shaped at regular intervals. It has leaves like the Pine but 

 thinner ; these stand in bunches, sheathed below in a tube, 

 five or six together and perpetually green. The carefulness 

 of Mother Nature is unmistakably proved by the manner in 

 which this tree buds in spring. That is, it develops five buds 

 (shoots ?) at the end of each twig, the central one of which is 

 larger than the lateral ones. From this there then develop 

 further leaves and fruits. By comparing the description of 

 this tree with the tree native to our mountains their identity 

 will be recognized. The specimen at Fontainebleau has not 

 yet borne fruit." Belon then adds that he had collected seeds 

 of P. Cembra in Savoy, and obtained plants from them which 

 were identical in appearance with the little tree in the king's 

 garden. To-day, comments Herr Bolle, every cultivator is 



familiar with the great resemblance between young plants of 

 P. Cembra and of P. Strobus. "Nothing is more pardonable 

 than to confuse the two." The little exotic stood unique at 

 Fontainebleau, where, as is wellknown, the true "Tree-of-life" 

 of the North American provinces was cultivated. By com- 

 parison with this it continued to be called the " second Tree- 

 of-life " {altera arbor vita), probably on account of the fact 

 that their common origin was known, although not specially 

 dwelt upon. 



It thus seems probable that it was a White Pine which 

 Francis I. possessed in a living state. Those who question the 

 fact, says Herr Bolle, should consider that Belon's phrase, 

 " thinner " or " very thin leaves " {folia exiliora) does not apply 

 to P. Cembra, but does in the most decided way to P. Strobus. 



There were other enthusiastic horticulturists in France at 

 that period who loved to crowd their gardens with novel exo- 

 tics. But in no record of their collections can the slightest 

 indication of the presence of P. Strobus be found. The little 

 tree of Francis I. must have soon disappeared without leaving 

 trace or seed behind. And though the Hollanders, who so 

 long possessed large portions of our country, may well have 

 sent specimens of this striking Pine home to the impassioned 

 horticulturists of their mother-land, no statement of the fact 

 can be found. Pierre Belon's description of the altera arbor 

 vita at Fontainebleau is the only proof we have of the existence 

 of P. Strobus in Europe prior to 1705. But in Herr Bolle's 

 opinion this is enough to carry back the European story of the 

 tree a century and a half beyond the commonly accepted date. 



Two Remarkable Catalpa-Trees. 



HHHE tree shown in the illustration (Fig. 68, p. 537) is aCatalpa 

 -*■ {C. bignonoides), and one of two trees growing on the 

 old P. C. Brooks place in West Medford, Massachusetts. 

 These trees were set out on April 24th, 1809, and owing to their 

 favorable situation have attained a remarkable size. They 

 stand on the south side of the house and are well protected 

 from the winds in winter. Two spouts conduct the water from 

 a large portion of the roof directly to the roots. The tree shown 

 in Fig. 68 is the more interesting of the two. The trunk is nine 

 feet eight inches in circumference at four feet from the ground; 

 it is about forty feet high and has a spread of fifty feet. At four 

 feet from the ground four branches radiate from the trunk, 

 two of which, on the south side of the tree, drop toward the 

 ground until they touch it, and at this point they have rooted 

 and thrown up four or five young shoots, two of which are over 

 three feet in circumference at two feet from the ground. This 

 first rooting of the limbs is but ten feet distant from the stem. 

 The trailing branches extend in various directions over the 

 turf from these first two clumps of shoots, throwing up 

 shoots like huge suckers wherever the old limbs have rooted 

 until a small forest of young Catalpas has been formed under 

 the shade of the parent tree. There is no record of when this 

 peculiar habit first developed, but it must have been many 

 years ago. All the limbs that connect the young tree to the 

 main trunk have been dead for many years, but the wood is 

 still perfectly sound. 



The second tree (Fig. 69), standing to the eastward of the 

 one described above, although not so interesting, is a large 

 Catalpa for this region. The trunk is ten feet in circumference 

 at two feet six inches from the ground, and the tree is about 

 fifty feet high and has a spread of thirty feet. A heavy gale 

 took out more than half this tree some years ago. The new 

 branches from the old wound are now sweeping the ground in 

 much the same manner as do those of the sister tree, whose 

 rooted branches cover an area of 300 square feet. 

 West Medford, Mass. Henry Brooks. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Crinums. — The genus Crinum deserves to fill a much more 

 important place amongst cultivated bulbous plants than it does 

 now. Of the eighty or so species described fully forty are 

 known to be in cultivation, and of these at least a score are 

 possessed of characters sufficiently striking to find general 

 favor. They are not as a rule difficult to cultivate; they flower 

 freely, some species several times a year, whilst their flowers 

 are large, handsome, and almost invariably sweet scented. 

 In England the only representative collections of Crinums 

 known to me are at Kew, and in the garden of Sir Charles 

 Strickland, Baronet, at Malton, in Yorkshire. Sir Charles has 

 made a specialty of Crinums and several other genera of 

 Amaryllidacea for many years, cultivating them with conspicu- 

 ous success, and carefully noting the peculiarities of each under 



