252 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 22, 1889. 



Notes. 



Tea Roses o£ the best varieties, of fair quality aad with the 

 fashional;le long stems, were selling in the streets of Boston 

 last week, ten for twenty-tive eents. 



The trade journals note a marked declnie in the demand for 

 cut Tulips. For two or three seasons back Tulips of every 

 kind had been extremely popular, especially for table decora- 

 tion, but for some unexplained reason they have not been fa- 

 vorites this year. 



A most instructive picture of the two large specimens of the 

 California Fan Palms ( IVasJiingtonia filifera) at Los Angeles has 

 recently been published in the Scientific Atnerican. These 

 two trees, which stand near an ancient well, are believed to 

 be the largest in existence and to have been planted by the 

 founders of the early Spanish Missions in California, who may 

 have brought them from the desert farther south, where this 

 species is only known to grow naturally. The two trees which 

 stand close together, one on each side of the well, mingling their 

 leaves far above it, are about ninety-five feet liigh and their 

 trunks are seven feet in diameter. They are believed to be a 

 hundred years old. 



The Revue Horticole recently noted the first success that has 

 been achieved in the artiticial crossing of two allied species of 

 conifers. Monsieur Vilmorin, in the year 1867, fertilized a 

 female flower of Abies Pinsapo with the pollen of A. Cepha- 

 lonica, and procured one cone with a single fertile seed. 

 This produced a plant which last year fruited for the first 

 time. The hybrid tree, which is now twenty-one years old, is 

 remarkable for its fine development, and in appearance stands 

 midway between its parents, most closely resembling^. Ceph- 

 alonica, however, both in length of its leaves and in their silvery 

 color. In color and form the cones also are more like those 

 of the male parent. 



The illustrations of tioral devices which were recently pub- 

 lished in the American Florist and noticed in these columns, 

 are commented upon in a late number of the Gardetiers' 

 Chronicle (London). "Some of the designs," it is written, 

 " are exceedingly pretty and appropriate, but what shall we say 

 of a table-cloth entirely covered with Pansy liovvers of a huge 

 bell similarly covered, or a floral butterfly? For the dead 

 journalist a desk and inkstand, all made of flowers, are pre- 

 pared as a funeral ornament. Chacim a son gout, but not too 

 much of it." The French proverb is a wise one in the 

 majority of cases, but to use it here is to use it unworthily. 

 "To everyone his own wish," would be a better phrase. 



A pretty picture in a recent number of The Garden showed 

 "A Growth of Hellebores in Winter" in one of those places 

 where most people think " nothing will grow" — a shady gar- 

 den corner beside a fence. " The soil is the poorest possible 

 — a dry sand and under the shade of Fir-trees. A bank was 

 thrown up to conceal a road, and the Hellebores, then young 

 seedlings, . . . were planted in groups. On other parts of the 

 same bank were varieties of minor Periwinkle, Solomon's Seal 

 and common hardy Ferns, all doing well." Iris fatida was 

 also used and Irish Ivy to cover the fence ; and from the wit- 

 ness of the picture we can well believe that throughout the 

 past winter this unpromising spot has been " the best clothed 

 bit of the garden." 



The hybrid Violets of the particular strain for which Mr. Rob- 

 inson suggested in The Garden the name of Tufted Pansies, 

 are among the most interesting flowers now in bloom. They 

 are from the common Pansy crossed with an alpine Violet. 

 They have a more tufted habit and grow rather more closely 

 than the Pansy, endure the winter quite as well, flower very 

 freely for a long time, and are delightfully fragrant. There are 

 several named varieties, but in the garden of Mr. John N. 

 Gerard, at Elizabeth, New Jersey, a bed of unselected seed- 

 hngs now in bloom captivates every visitor. As Mr. Gerard 

 says : "Some of the highly-bred Pansies have been improved 

 a litde too much ; they once smiled, but now they grin," and 

 these more modest hybrids, with their delicate self colors, 

 make a pleasing change. 



In the garden of Professor Charles N. Shepard, Charleston, 

 South Carolina, is a Rose remarkable for its size and vigor. 

 The original stock, a Banksian Rose, was planted more than 

 fifty years ago, but — at heights varying from ten to fifteen 

 feet— grafts of Mardchal Neil, Marie Van Houtte, Devoniensis, 

 Cloth of Gold, Madame Eugenie Verdier and other choice 

 varieties have been inserted, and these have made wonderful 

 growth. The trunk at the base is nearly a foot and a half in 



diameter and the branches cover two trellises, each some 

 forty feet long and twelve feet wide, besides rioting over a 

 piazza sixty-five feet long and for-ty-five feet high, while the 

 topmost shoots are aspiring to cover the roof. From a pho- 

 tograph, kindly sent us by Professor Shepard, it can be seen 

 that this great vine was thickly covered from bottom to top 

 with finely-developed flowers. 



Papyrus, universally used for writing upon in the ancient 

 world, was manufactured out of the stalks of the plants of this 

 name (Cyperus). The largest portion of the stalk was chosen 

 and was split down one side; the soft centre was removed, and 

 the sheath, about eight inches in breadth, was pressed, pol- 

 ished and rubbed with oil of Cedar to preserve it from decay. 

 Two sheets were then gummed one upon the other in such a 

 way that the fibres of one ran at right angles to those of the 

 second, in order that sulficient consistency might be obtained; 

 and then these doubled sheets were attached to one another to 

 form rolls of any desired length. Papyrus was so generally 

 used even in the later Roman period that Cassiodorus, says a 

 recent writer in the Revue Horticole, wrote an epistle congratu- 

 lating the whole human race upon the fact that the import 

 duty laid upon it by Theodoric had been decreased. In the 

 time of Xerxes an immense number of Papyrus cables were 

 manufactured in Egypt for use in his fleets and in his bridge- 

 building enterprises. 



It is pleasant to know that the money bequeathed a few years 

 ago by a gentleman of Chicago for the purpose of erecting a 

 gateway to the yard of Harvard College, will procure a beauti- 

 ful piece of work, which will greatly enhance the dignity of the 

 group of buildings behind it, harmonizing with the solid sim- 

 plicity of the older halls, yet ornate enough to be in keeping 

 with so fine a modern example as Sever Hall. The design of 

 the architects, Messrs. McKim, Mead and White, as published 

 in the American Architect and Building News, shows a large 

 wrought-iron gate, with simple uprights and a delicate tracerid 

 top, supportecl by two square, massive piers. These have sunk 

 panels on their faces, enframed in simple borders, and bearing 

 the arms of the college and appropriate inscriptions, and are 

 crowned by a well-profiled cornice and a low coping- finished 

 with a ball. From these piers extends on either hand a stretch 

 of wall lower than the gate, in which is a round-arched door- 

 way, and, Ijetvveen this doorway and the gate, a fountain in one 

 case, and in the other an oval-grated window for the use of the 

 custodian when the yard is closed. These walls end in low 

 piers, and the whole construction is recessed behind short, 

 advancing arms of wall, finished with similar piers, from which, 

 to right and left, extends a graceful wrought-iron railing. The 

 design, if it is necessary to give it a name, may be called 

 " Queen Anne," and is thereforein keeping with the oldest build- 

 ings in the yard, while handled with greater delicacy and 

 refinement than one usually finds when the same name is sug- 

 gested by a modern piece of work. 



A correspondent of the Gardeners' Chronicle (London) speaks 

 as follows of the botanical gardens at Maritzburg, Natal : " The 

 Maritzburg Botanic Gardens were first enclosed and planted in 

 1874, and are 100 acres in extent, situate in the Zvvartkop Val- 

 ley, two miles from town. The site is very diversified, con- 

 sisting of a gently sloping piece of ground in extent about 

 thirty acres, which is watered by two perennial mountain 

 streams, the remainder consisting of a steep hill-side rising to 

 a height of some 300 feet above the rest of the garden, the 

 sides of which are being planted with Pinus insignis, Acacias, 

 etc. The local temperature is frequently over 80° in the shade 

 during summer, and sinks to 3° and 4° of frost in the winter. 

 . . . The lower part of the garden is about 2,300 feet above the 

 sea, and is planted with a selection of trees and shrubs which, 

 considering their age — none over seventeen years — it would 

 be difficult to match elsewhere for vigor and size. Taking the 

 girth of a few of the largest at five feet from the ground we find 

 Casuarina tenuissima to be 5 feet 3 inches ; Acacia dealbata, 7 

 feet ; A. melanoxylon, 4 feet ; Ctipresstis niacrocarpa, 5 feet ; 

 Pinus Canariensis, 4 feet ; P. Pinaster, 4 feet ; P. insignis, 5 feet 

 6 inches ; Grevillea robusta, 3 feet 9 inches ; Ctipresstis Law- 

 soniana, 3 feet ; Eucalyptus globultis, 5 feet 6 inches, all in fine 

 health. There is a fair collection of flowering shrubs. ... Of 

 glass houses there is scarcely a vestige. The garden of the 

 capital of Natal contains but one iron conservatory, eighteen 

 feet l)y nine feet, in a wretched state of repair, and not a glass 

 frame of any kind ! It may be added that the Government 

 grant is only ;£35o, and the public subscription list for last year 

 only ^28. Few plants are sold, but a considerable number of 

 young trees are granted free to the railway and other Govern- 

 ment institutions." 



