28 



Garden and Forest. 



[January i6, 1889. 



plants. It is only about five years since they were brought 

 into notice, and now they are in almost every garden. But 

 their cultivation is not yet properly understood, save by a few. 

 They are as easily managed as Roman Hyacinths ; but one 

 point of special importance must be observed. This is, the 

 plants ought to be kept growing all the year round, not rested, 

 as is the usual practice. The best plants in flower now have 

 spikes two feet high, with from four to seven branches and 

 many large, pure white, deliciously fragrant flowers. These 

 have not been rested since they fiowered last year, but kept 

 watered and shifted into a size larger pot in May. Bulbs 

 which were dried off and rested dry have not produced nearly 

 such fine spikes. It is true that at the Cape, where Freesias 

 are native, they undergo a long period of drought and en- 

 forced rest, but nature is not always the best guide in regard 

 to the cultivation of other plants besides Freesias. There is 

 only one really first-rate kind, and that is the one known as 

 i^ refracta-alba. All the known kinds are varieties of one, or 

 at most two, species. 



Lachenalias.— The first species to flower heve'is, L. pendii/a, 

 and, taken altogether, this is the best of all. It blooms early, 

 lasts a long time, the flowers are the largest, most numerous 

 on the spike, and their colors are attractive. The species 

 varies somewhat, the best form having erect spikes, fifteen 

 inches long, with from thirty to forty flowers on a spike, each 

 flower one and a half inches long, of good width and sub- 

 stance, and colored vermilion, marked and tinted with sea- 

 green and purple. L. quadricolor (syn. L. tigrina- Ward and 

 L. super ba) is also in bloom. It is a variety of the old and 

 common L. tricolor, which every one grows, or should grow, 

 and of which we have several other distinct and pretty varie- 

 ties. This has erect spikes nearly a foot long, with from ten 

 to fifteen nodding flowers, each one inch long ; the sepals, 

 yellow tipped with emerald green, half as long as the petals, 

 which are greenish-yellow, banded at the apex with brown- 

 purple. Well grown plants of these two Lachenalias make a 

 fresh and pretty display in December and January. The 

 genus is limited to the Cape, where there are about thirty 

 species. They are commonly known as Cape Hyacinths. If 

 not already well known in American gardens, they deserve to 

 become so. We grow large quantities of most of those 

 above named for the conservatory in winter and early spring. 



Skimmia Foremanni. — A group of small, bushy plants, 

 grown in pots and covered with berries, was exhibited at the 

 last meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society under this 

 name. The berries were in large clusters, as in the Holly, 

 about the size of small peas and shining coral-red in color. 

 The plants were very ornamental, and exactly of that charac- 

 ter which is certain to prove valuable for Christmas decora- 

 tions. Mr. Foremann, nurseryman, of Eskbank, Dalkeith, pro- 

 fesses to have obtained them by crossing S. fragrans and S. 

 oblata, but they look rather like a seedling sport from the 

 well-known S. Japonica, though they promise to be much 

 more useful in the garden than even that good old plant. 

 Mr. Foremann states that the berries remain on the plants 

 eighteen months or two years. 



Cydonia Moerloosei is a new variety of C. Japonica recently 

 obtained by Messrs. Veitch, and till lately flowering in their 

 nursery at Coombe Wood. In a mild winter it is usual for C. 

 Japonica to develop a few straggling flowers ; it has done 

 so somewhat freely this nrionth. But C. Moerloosei was cov- 

 ered with bloom and buds in mid-December, so that if the 

 mild weather continues it will be in full bloom at Christmas. 

 This free-flowering plant would probably be worth growing in 

 pots for the supply of cut bloom in mid-winter. The flowers are 

 scarlet, and larger than in the type. Apparently there is 

 another variety, with white and carmine flowers, under the 

 name of C. Moerloosei, in continental gardens. 



BOUVARDIAS. — I am told that these plants are grown a great 

 deal better in America than we can hope to grow them here, 

 owing, no doubt, to your bright winter sun. In England no 

 one grows them better than the Messrs. Low, of Clapton, 

 where I saw half a dozen enormous houses full of them, all 

 either in full bloom or in bud. The single-flowered varieties 

 are beautiful. President Cleveland being perhaps best of all. 

 But the douVjled-flowered kinds are ugly, stiff, ungainly, bear- 

 ing the stamp of monster on every petal. I believe they all 

 originated in America. Would it be asking too much if one 

 requested your Bouvardia raisers to burn all the double sports 

 they get and limit their efforts to singled-flowered varieties ? 

 Many double flowers are ugly ; double Bouvardias are 

 especially so. 



Christmas Roses are in glorious perfection in sheltered bor- 

 ders out-of-doors here. Some of the clumps bear each fifty or 

 more flowers, all expanded, pure white or rose-tinted, and 



promising to remain in beauty for weeks if the fog will only 

 permit them. 



Platyclinis. — These plants are better known by the garden 

 name of Dendrochilum. Several species are flowering at 

 Kew, the two best being P. Cobbiana and P. uncata. I sup- 

 pose these plants are well known in America, and I only no- 

 tice them here for the purpose of stadng a fact which may not 

 be known to all growers, in regard to the temperature they 

 like best. Until about three years ago we grew them in our East 

 India house, treating them as distinctly tropical Orchids. They 

 throve under such treatment for a time, and then weakened, 

 becoming spotted and sickly. On removing them to the Cat- 

 tleya house they improved, and have continued to do well and 

 flower freely every winter since. 



Maxillaria grandiflora is the best of those species which 

 thrive in a cool house. It is much superior to M. venusta, its 

 nearest affinity, the leaves being less apt to spot and the flow- 

 ers better in shape and more upright. Each flower is elevated 

 on a pedimcle six inches long and is nearly fovir inches across, 

 pure white, save the soft yellow of the front lobe of the label- 

 lum and the tinge of rose on its two side lobes. The flowers 

 are fragrant and remain fresh at least a month. 



Bromeliads. — There is a very large collection of these plants 

 at Kew, some of which are always in bloom. The order is not 

 popular in England, a few only, such as Tillandsia Lindeni, 

 being recognized by hordculturists here. In Continental gar- 

 dens these plants are as popular as Orchids are here. The 

 late Professor Morren had a large range of houses filled with 

 all kinds of Bromeliads, which made a glorious display of a 

 very interesting and exceptional kind at all seasons. Such fine 

 genera as Billbergia, Vriesia, ^Echmea and Pitcairnea are now 

 represented by flowering examples at Kew, where, singularly 

 enough, they are as much admired by visitors as the best of 

 Orchids. 



December 2ist, 1888. ~ W. WalSOn. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 An Addition to the Trees of Florida. 



IT is only after a good deal of hesitation and a careful 

 examination of the material which illustrates the Ameri- 

 can species in the herbaria at Kew, Paris and Berlin, that I 

 venture to propose a new species in the large and very 

 difficult tropical genus Eugenia for a Florida tree which 

 none of the described species with axillary inflorescence at 

 all resembles. 



Etigenia Garberi, nov. spec* which is figured upon 

 page 29 of the present issue, is, in Florida, a tree fifty to 

 sixty feet high, with a straight trunk, eighteen to twenty- 

 inches in diameter, covered with thin, bright red bark, 

 separating freely into thin, flaky scales ; the branches are 

 rather stout, upright and covered with reddish bark ; the 

 branchlets are round, very slender and ashy gray. The 

 leaves are an inch and a half to two inches long, and a half 

 to nearly three-quarters of an inch wide ; they are ovate- 

 oblong, acute, or more rarely somewhat rounded at the 

 base, and gradually contracted at the other end into a 

 long, obtuse point ; the margins are revolute and thickened. 

 The leaves are very coriaceous, dark green and glandular- 

 punctate on the lower surface; the mid-rib is prominent, 

 and the primary veins are connected near the margins, 

 and form a conspicuous line nearly parallel with them. 

 They are borne on stout petioles one-third to nearly 

 one-half an inch long. The flowers, which appear in Sep- 

 tember, are small, hardly more than an eighth of an inch 

 across when fully expanded, with short, rounded, obtuse 

 sepals and nearly round white petals. They are produced 

 in several-flowered axillary umbels upon glabrous, slender 

 pedicels, which about equal the peduncles in length, and 

 have two minute, acuminate, deciduous bracts just below 

 the flowers. The ovary is two-celled, with numerous 

 ovules. The fruit, which matures in March and April, is 



* Eugenia Garberi, nov. spec; arbor raediocris; ramulis novellis teretiusculis, 

 glabris;foliis petiolatis, ovato-oblongis, obtuse longiuscule acuminatis, basi acutis, 

 vel sub-rotundatis, glabris, rigide coriaciis, margine revoluto, subtus minute 

 punctato-glandulosis, nervis mediis supra vix impressis, subtus prominentis, venis 

 tenuibus, arcuatim limbinervis, utrinque reticulatis; pedlcillis glabris, umbellatis, 

 axillaribus, i-fioris, sub. flora bibracteatis, folio 4-5-plo brevioribus; sepalis 

 4, ovatis, membranaceis; petalis subrotundatis; ovariis, bilocularis, loculis multi- 

 ovulis; ijaccis calyce coronatis, sub-globosis vel obovatis, longe-pedunculatis, 

 i-spermis, coccineis. 



Habitat in silvis Floridee australis, et in insulis New Providence et Antigua. 



E. PROCERA, Sargent, Reports Tenth Census United States, ix., 89, in parte. 



