May 8, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



221 



anchor, with cross composed entirely 

 of rich yellow Tea-roses on a ground 

 ot Violets and Ivy leaves. A broad 

 circle of pure white Lilac, with a knot 

 composed of Gardenia. A large harp 

 made up of rich white flowers, the 

 strings formed of single lines ot Vio- 

 lets. There were also many of the 

 German style of wreath, in which tlie 

 leaves of Cycas and similar plants 

 form the principal feature. I never 

 saw so wonderful a collection of 

 beautiful flowers as were arranged in 

 the chapel where the remains of the 

 Duchess rested. Taking a rough esti- 

 mate of their commercial value, I 

 should say there were about $3,500 

 worth of flowers there. It has been 

 stated lately in so-called fashionable 

 papers that flowers at funerals were 

 not the fashion. There were evidences 

 at this funeral that flowers are more 

 used than ever. W. Watson. 



April 18. 



7 



The Purple Beech. 

 'HE large Purple Beech 



at 



Tlie Purpir Beech of tlie Lyman Place. 



cultivated by them in every available corner. It was introduced 

 from Japan to Europe, but is really Chinese, as also is the 

 Mum6 and many other plants of supposed Japanese origin, but 

 which were obtained originally L^y the Japanese from China. 



The funeral of the late Duchess of Cambridge, which has 

 taken place at Kew to-day, has been exceptional for the mag- 

 nificence and variety of the floral \vreatlis and crosses sent. 

 There must have l)een close upon two iiundred of these, 

 some of them of gigantic size, and mostly composed of the 

 choicest white flowers. Of those which appeared to attract 

 greatest attention were the following : A wreath five feet in 

 diameter, and eighteen inches across the coil, was made up 

 of rich masses of Odontoglosstiin crispiiin, Stephanotis, Gar- 

 denia, Eucharis, etc. This wreath alone contained ten 

 guineas' worth of flowers. A heart three feet across, and 

 made up of Calla Lilies, Eucharis, Lilac and Gardenia, with 

 a miniatiu'e cross of Mignonette flxed in the centre and upon 

 this a tiny wreath of Forget-me-nots. A small cross of Violets 

 with single flowers of Stephanotis dotted all overit. A circle of 

 Beauiiiontia grandiflora, the flowers of which remained fresh 

 when most other flowers were more or less drooping. An 



Waltham, of which an illus- 

 tration appears upon this page 

 is no doubt one of the finest in- 

 dividuals of this variety planted 

 in the United States. Downing, 

 who was familiar with the Ly- 

 man Place, does not, however, 

 mention it in his "Landscape Gar- 

 dening," written forty or fifty years 

 ago ; and it is probable that the 

 specimen which was growing at 

 that time at Throgg's Neck, in West- 

 chester County, and which Down- 

 ing declared was the finest in the 

 United States, is now, if still alive, 

 much larger than the Waltham tree, 

 which has lost a good deal from 

 overcrowding and from the garden- 

 wall liuilt close to the trunk, which 

 has destroyed the lower branches. 

 There is no tree which demands 

 more room for free development 

 than the Beech; and a Beech, stand- 

 ing on a lawn or in a garden, on 

 which there are no lower branches 

 to sweep down to the turf has lost 

 a large part of the characteristic 

 beauty which makes it valuable. 

 The stem of the Beech, it is true, 

 especially of the American species, 

 has great beauty and a charm pe- 

 culiar to itself, but it is in the wood 

 or in the forest that this beauty should be seen and admired; 

 and Beeches should not be planted in ornamental grounds 

 where light and space cannot be afforded them for full and 

 unchecked growth in every direction. 



The Purple Beech is a tree of much interest, apart from 

 its undoubted value for ornamental planting — a subject 

 which has already been fully discussed on another page. 

 It is one of the few examples among trees where an ab- 

 normal bud-variety has retained its character for more than 

 a century, through hundreds of thousands of individuals, 

 all sprung from a single branch* (discovered towards the 



*Schubeler, in his I'irtilariuin Nomrgicum, contrary to the generally accepted 

 theory of the origin of the Purple Beech; states that the parent tree from which 

 all Purple Beeches have come was found between the years 1760 and 1770 near 

 Sondershausen, in the Scandinavian peninsula ; and that when he wrote a few years 

 ago it was still in existence. The Beech nowhere occurs more commonly or grows 

 to finer development than around the shores of the Baltic, which are often clothed 

 with splendid Beech forests down to the water's edge. An example figured by 

 Schiibeler as standing in 1873 near Gradval was 22'^ metres in height with a girth 

 of over three metres, and showed a thick and almost perfectly symmetrical head, 

 the brandies diverging at abcnit a metre and a lialt above the'ground. 



