6o8 



Garden and Forest. 



[December 17, 1890. 



quadrangle, a turfed enclosure and playground was laid out 

 in the centre, rind it has proved a very satisfactory and attrac- 

 tive feature. This idea lends itself admirably to the construc- 

 tion of apartment houses in a neighborhood. The chief 

 hindrance to its general adoption lies in the indisposition of 

 builders toward acting co-operatively, even where their com- 

 mon advantage is concerned. But as the benefits of the plan 

 become evident this obstacle will probably be overcome, and 

 we may look to see at no distant future the new additions to 

 our cities and the newly planned cities of this country so 

 arranged that their dwellings shall enclose common pleasure- 

 grounds for each block ample in space and beautiful in de- 

 sign. The maintenance of these in attractive shape would be 

 as much a matter of pride with the residents as the proper 

 care of their grounds is with the residents of an enlightened 

 suburban or rural neighborhood. 



The desirability of this plan in its application to a neighbor- 

 hood of working-people is illustrated in an interesting experi- 

 ment just tried by the city of Liverpool in the erection of 

 houses for that purpose. An unsightly tract, covered with 

 wretched hovels, was condemned by the city under the act of 

 Parliament authorizing municipalities to take such action, 

 turning out 1,300 people. Under special plans by Mr. Clement 

 Dunscombe, who was afterward awarded a gold medal at the 

 International Health Exhibition for this work, a quadrangle of 

 pleasant five-story buildings was established with room for 

 600 or 700 people. The open space is devoted to a playground 

 and garden, with five arched passage-ways from the streets. 

 The garden is adorned with a fountain, and there are walks 

 and roads of gravel. Should this plan be generally adopted by 

 cities there would be no necessity of incurring large expendi- 

 tures for demolishing buildings in tenement neighborhoods 

 to create small parks ; the needed breathing places would be 

 supplied by these enclosures, and the whole work would be a 

 profitable transaction for the city, for the Liverpool enterprise 

 yields the municipal treasury a return of four per cent, on the 

 investment, with the rates for rents placed at a remarkably low 

 figure. 



Another enterprise in Boston, or rather in the adjacent town 

 of Brookline, is worthy of mention as indicating the tendency 

 to an open character in city construction. Out on the beautiful 

 new Beacon Street improvement, near Chestnut Hill, where 

 the suburban neighborhood is rapidly assuming an urban 

 character, expensive blocks of houses have been built on the 

 "terrace" plan, after an artistic design. These houses not 

 only have small individual gardens, but they face a large and 

 handsome garden, the use of which is free to the tenants or 

 purchasers for tennis, croquet and general recreation. The 

 residents in these houses are also furnished daily, at reduced 

 rates, with fresh vegetables and pure milk from a farm belong- 

 ing to their builder. 



Eventually our cities can perhaps be rid entirely of the draw- 

 backs of their closely built character, which, with the attendant 

 confusion, noise and confinement, is responsible for much of 

 the disease and discomfort of urban populations. They will 

 then be transformed into expanses of house-enclosed garden- 

 spaces, which, with the establishment of large and numerous 

 public parks, will combine upon the same area the main ad- 

 vantages of both city and countrv life. 



Boston. Sylvester Baxter. 



Plant Notes. 



Vanda Batemanni and Vanda Lindeni in Their 

 Native Country. 



'"PHE thirty-five or forty species of the splendid genus Vanda 

 ■*■ are widely scattered in tropical Asia from the Malay 

 Archipelago to the base of the Himalaya Mountains, where 

 only Dendrobiums and some of the genera peculiar to a more 

 temperate climate occur. These favored regions of southern 

 Asia are especially noteworthy on account of the abundance 

 and splendor of the Orchids which they contain. 



The numerous groups of islands which compose the Malay 

 Archipelago offer a vast field to botanical explorers. Un- 

 fortunately, many of the islands are surrounded by coral reefs 

 which make landing difficult. At the time I visited this 

 Archipelago I tried to navigate as near as possible to the coral 

 reefs, endeavoring to explore the flora of each island with the 

 aid of my field-glass, especially when the island was so small 

 as to make the landing undesirable, the landing on these 

 islands, as I have said, being always exceedingly difficult. 



It was in this way that I first saw Vanda Batemanni, growing 

 almost at the sea-level, when the tide was in, upon rocks 

 rising from the water. In the little island where I found this 



plant for the first time it existed in great quantities and in 

 handsome straight specimens. The best were those which 

 grew against shrubs or on isolated rocks. I saw several which 

 were more than six feet high bearing on each side of their 

 stems from four to eight floral spikes. I noticed many other 

 Orchids on this island. The plants, with one exception, how- 

 ever, were not in flower, and I could not determine the genus 

 at the time. The exception, however, made a great impres- 

 sion on me. It proved to be Bulbophylliim grandiflornm. The 

 plant covered entirely a little tree with its flowers, producing 

 at a little distance a most remarkable effect. 



Vanda Lindeni, which I discovered in one of the islands of 

 this region, grows in an entirely different way. It is found 

 almost always on the dead branches of large trees, on the 

 borders of small forests, or on fallen trees near the banks of 

 rivers or brooks, but always at a certain distance from the 

 ground. This remarkable species appears in clusters, with 

 from fifty to two hundred stems, and sometimes with even 

 more. It is a difficult matter to collect the plants, as the red 

 ants, one of the scourges of that beautiful country, always 

 make use of them to establish their nests in. The natives are 

 very much afraid of their bite, which produces an eruption 

 which lasts for several days. They are, therefore, exceedingly 

 unwilling to climb the trees where the plants are growing for 

 the purpose of collecting them. So I was obliged to employ 

 another method for gathering the plants. I fastened several 

 bamboos end to end and fixed a hook at the end of the long 

 pole thus obtained. In this way I was able to pull down a few 

 small clusters. As soon as the plants fell we dragged them at 

 once to the water and gave them a good bath in order to 

 rid them of the terrible guests with which they were often 

 covered. 



Vanda Lindeni is extremely prolific. I have seen clusters 

 of stems upon which there were more than a thousand flower- 

 spikes, most of them with from twenty to twenty-five flowers. 

 Unfortunately, the specimens of this marvelous Orchid 

 which I was able to bring living to Europe only give a very 

 incomplete idea of what this plant is in its native home, both 

 as to the size of the specimens and the abundance of the 

 flowers. — Auguste Linden in Le Journal des Orchidies. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Streptocarpus Dunnii.* 



THIS is one of the most remarkable of the many re- 

 markable plants of Africa. It was introduced to Kew 

 in 1884 by means of seeds sent from the Transvaal, on the 

 mountains of which, near a place called Spitzkop, it is said 

 to be abundant. The seeds soon germinated, and the 

 development of the plants was watched with increasing 

 interest as the solitary leaf, of which each consisted, 

 gradually assumed extraordinary proportions. Its ultimate 

 size was over three feet in length by sixteen inches in 

 breadth, the petiole as thick as, and no longer than, a man's 

 thumb, whilst the blade extended along the ground like a 

 large Rhubarb leaf. The principal nerves were very thick 

 and fleshy, and the under side was thickly clothed with a 

 reddish tomentum, the upper surface being also hairy, and 

 gray-green in color. The effect produced by about a 

 hundred plants of this Streptocarpus, which formed a bor- 

 der round a large bed of succulent plants in one of the 

 large houses at Kew, was particularly striking. When, 

 however, the plants flowered, their interest and attractions 

 were considerably increased. From the base of each leaf, 

 and extending some few inches up the midrib, there was 

 a row of scapes packed close together and rising erect to 

 the height of a foot or more, branched, and bearing a per- 

 fect sheaf of flowers (see Fig. 81, p. 609). One of the 

 strongest of the plants had over one hundred flowers ex- 

 panded at the same time. Before the flowering season was 

 over each scape produced about sixty flowers, each of which 

 was one and a half inches long, tubular, slightly curved, 

 lobed, puberulous and colored a bright terra-cotta red. 

 The plants commenced to flower in May and continued 

 till August, when they ripened abundance of seeds. 



A dry atmosphere, absence of shade, with a moderate 

 amount of moisture at the root, and a well drained loamy 



*Hooker in Bot. Mag., i. 6903. 



