2l6 



Garden and Forest. 



[May I, 1889. 



Notes. 



The great gold medal of the Royal Horticultural Society was 

 recently bestowed upon Baron Ferdinand von Miillerin recogni- 

 tion of his services in the investigation of the Hora of Australia. 



Mr. E. W. Reasoner states, in the Florida Dispatch, that 

 Exochorda grandiflora does remarkably well in that State, as 

 does Sfircea Cantoniensis and some other Spiraeas which are 

 not quite hardy in the Middle States. 



A correspondent of The Garden (London) recently spoke of 

 a spot in Dunrobin Castle Gardens, Scotland, where, about the 

 first of March, two acres of the common Snow-drop could be 

 seen in full bloom under the ancient trees. 



Our readers will remember that the first issue of Garden 

 AND Forest contained a photographic picture of the new 

 Chrysanthemum, Mrs. Alpheus Hardy. The first illustration 

 that we have seen of it in a foreign journal appears in The 

 Garden for April 6th, a fine wood-cut of a single fiower. 



Mr. Baker describes in a recent issue of the Gardoiers' 

 Chronicle a new species of Snowdrop, Galanthiis Fosteri, 

 brought from the neighborhood of Amasia, in Asia Minor. 

 "So far as the flowers go," Mr. Baker remarks, " it looks most 

 like the larger forms of G. Elwesii, but the leaves are broad 

 and bright green, like those of G. latifoliiis." 



Le Moniteur d' Horticulture reproduces from Hygiene 

 Pratique this simple method of testing the quality of a pear: 

 Write a name with pen and ink upon the dry skin of the fruit. 

 If the ink is quickly absorbed, leaving clear, sharp lines, the 

 quality of the fruit is good ; if the skin does not absorb the ink 

 quickly, and the lines are blotted, the quality is inferior. 



Mr. D. Dewar, whose interesting notes on Primulas appear 

 on another page of this issue, is now in charge of the herba- 

 ceous and alpine plant department at Kew. It will be remem- 

 bered that the list of cultivated Primulas, which formed the 

 most important part of the printed report of the Primula Con- 

 ference, held by the Royal Horficultural Society in 1887, was 

 prepared by Mr. Dewar. 



Mr. John N. Gerard, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, sends us a 

 blooming plant of Androsace coronopifolia, a hardy Russian 

 biennial, its small white flowers, with a yellow centre, borne 

 on slender scapes. A colony of this little plant is an attractive 

 feature in the rockery or on the margin of the herbaceous 

 border. It will come up from seed year after year if it finds 

 itself in a congenial position, so that there are new plants to 

 bloom every spring. 



A healthy, well-flowered example of Shortia galacifoliavias 

 shown by Mr. H. J. Elwes at a recent exhibition of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society, and, as a matter of course, was awarded 

 a first-class certificate. An English correspondent writes that 

 "The interesting account of this plant which appeared in 

 Garden and Forest in December last has called the attention 

 of English growers of alpines to it, and conseqLiently living 

 plants of it are already in several collections here. It does not 

 appear to have ever been in English gardens until now, and 

 Mr. Elwes' plant is the first flowering example of it ever seen 

 alive in Europe. 



We have heard with much pain of the imtimely death 

 of Mr. J. A. McKenzie, who was associated with Messrs. David 

 Yates & Co., of Philadelphia, in charge of the department of 

 landscape-gardening in their business. Mr. McKenzie was 

 the eldest son of Major Alexander McKenzie, the eminent 

 landscape-gardener, of England, and during his brief sojourn 

 of a single year in this country he gained a wide reputation for 

 ability in his profession, and made a friend of everyone he met 

 by his modest and manly bearing. Of an article from his pen 

 which appeared in a recent number of Building we shall take 

 occasion to speak hereafter. 



Hideous floral designs are produced in every coimtry, but 

 only in our own, perhaps, could one be created which should 

 reveal so grotesque an attempt at humor with so utter a dis- 

 regard for the claims of art on the one hand and of proper 

 reverence for death on the other. It was designed, according 

 to the American Florist, for the funeral of a railroad employee 

 and represented a limited coupon ticket. The ticket, which 

 was five or six feet in length, rested against a colimin on which 

 was placed a ticket-stamp, and beliind stood the Angel of 

 Death in the act of stamping in the date of limit. The cou- 

 pons bore the names of the different roads upon which the 

 dead man had been employed, with corresponding dates, and 

 at the top were the words "Limited to October 9th, 1888" — 

 the day of his demise. 



At the Massachusetts Agricultural College Experiment 

 Station pollen was taken from a Carnation flower of a magenta 

 color, and after being kept in a dry place for five days, was 

 applied to the stigmatic surfaces of a yellow flower. From 

 twenty-seven seeds obtained by this crossing, nineteen plants 

 were grown, all but one of which produced double flowers. 

 Five of them bore yellow flowers of various lighter and 

 deeper shades, eight bore magenta flowers, four bore scarlet 

 flowers, and two white-striped flowers. In another trial the 

 pollen used was taken from a flower of the same variety — in 

 this case a yellow-striped one — and the seedlings all showed 

 yellow-striped flowers, although they varied somewhat in 

 shade. This seems to indicate that for the production of vari- 

 eties distinct in color, cross-fertilization is a necessity. 



The excessive accumulation of garden varieties of favorite 

 plants is illustrated by the fact that a recently-published German 

 catalogue, devoted entirely to Zonal and Ivy-leaved Geraniums, 

 contains 291 entries. It likewise gives amusing proof of the 

 difficulty of finding names for so many varieties. In addition 

 to the many "Glorias" and "Queens" and "Marvels" of one 

 thing and another, we find plants named for a multitude of 

 botanists, horticulturists and lady clients ; then the names of 

 living artists are lavishly drawn upon ; celebrities of all kinds 

 follow in curious conjunction, such as General Gordon, Tous- 

 saintL'Ouverture,Walter Scott, Count Herbert Bismarck, Leoni- 

 das, TheCid, De Lesseps, M. Eiffel and Horace Greeley — General 

 Boulanger, by the way, being unaccountably absent ; and at 

 last the tradesman's ingenuity has been driven to such expedi- 

 ents as Nemesis, Electric Light, Divine Comedy, Walkiire,. 

 Red Sea and Centaur. 



The first flower-show ever held in Detroit was opened on 

 April 2d, and continued for three days. The display is said to 

 have been most excellent, and it is pleasing to know that the 

 enterprise was commercially most successful. It was organized 

 by Mr. Brearley, proprietor of the Detroit Journal, assisted by 

 twenty ladies connected with as many charitable institutions. 

 As a result of this novel yet sensible plan, 4,000 tickets of ad- 

 mission were sold the first day at a price of twenty-five cents 

 each, and more than 19,000 on the succeeding days. The ex- 

 hibition was held in a large rink, and each of the charities 

 represented had its own booth for the sale of flowers. Most 

 of the plants were effectively grouped in large masses of 

 allied sorts, and the florists who signified their intention of 

 showing decorative arrangements were consulted with regard 

 to the prevailing color they would select, and rooms were 

 furnished for them in a harmonious way. 



Thousands of people are now visiting every day the Public 

 Garden in Boston to enjoy the spring ifowers which are lav- 

 ishly displayed there. The great show will come a little later, 

 when the Tulips are blooming. At present the featin-e is the 

 Hyacinths, which have been brought forward imder glass and 

 are now pkmged in full bloom into beds previously carpeted 

 with Daisies or with Pansies. Thousands of Hyacinths are used 

 in this way, and this fact will serve to illustrate the expensive 

 manner in which this garden is carried on. The flowers last a 

 few days only, and then the plants, which were first imported 

 from Europe, then potted, then stored away for the winter, 

 then brought forward under glass, then carted to the garden 

 and plunged into beds, are to be thrown away. The sight of 

 all these masses of Hyacinths is a beautiful one no doubt, but 

 the result is hardly commensurate with the expenditiu-e of 

 labor and money. There are certain beds in which very dark 

 blue Hyacinths are alternated with Narcissus Pseudo-Nar- 

 cissus. The combination of colors in these beds is admirable, 

 and the effect which these flowers together produce is as fine 

 as anything of the kind which can be seen. A bed in which 

 the same yellow-flowered Narcissus is mingled with a pale 

 pink-flowered Hyacinth is almost as unsuccessful as the others 

 are successful. It is pleasant to note that some of the super- 

 fluous flower-beds have quiefly disappeared from the garden, 

 that there are fewer of the horticultural curiosities scattered 

 about, and that the garden generally gives pronn'se of greater 

 simplicity of decoration. There is a pile of rocks in a con- 

 spicuous place, however, thickly planted with garden Tulips 

 (the garden Tulip is a flower of the parterre, if it is anything), 

 which is calculated to give a shock to the stoutest heart. But 

 perhaps it is an object lesson, intended to illustrate how not 

 to make a rockery, and how not to plant Tulips. That Mr. 

 Doogue knows how to plant Tulips the beds near the Com- 

 monwealth Avenue entrance and along the central walk will, 

 if they are as good as they have been in recent years, abun- 

 dantly demonstrate. Bostonians will have much to enjoy in 

 the garden during the next two or three weeks. 



