May 2g, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



259 



Chrysanthemums for the Border.— Tliere are some varieties 

 wliicli are handsome as well as early, and they can be trusted 

 to make a good display before irost. It must not be expected, 

 however, that the individual Howers will be as large as those 

 of later flowering kinds. It must be remembered, too, that, 

 in order to have good Chrysanthemums anywhere or at any 

 time, the plants must be well fed and they must not be 

 crowded — two feet square is the least space in which they will 

 thrive. Here are a dozen good, early varieties : The two forms 

 of Madame Desgranges, yellow and white; Madame Domage, 

 blush; Chevalier Domage, yellow; Prgcocit^ Japonaise, red; 

 Blanc Pr^coce, white ; L'Ami Couderchet, lilac ; Fiberta, 

 yellow ; Salter's Early, blush ; Roi des Pr^coces, red ; 

 Mandarin, pink ; La Vierge, white. <-., , ^, 



Pearl River. N. Y. JohllTllOrpe. 



Notes from a Northern Spring-Garden. 



Corydalis nobilis is a handsome Siberian species, and a real 

 acquisition to the list of hardy rock-garden plants. It grows 

 some eight or nine inches high, with bi-pinnate, delicate leaves, 

 with rather broad cuneate divisions and large, broad racemes 

 of pale yellow flowers, tipped with green. It has been grown 

 in gardens for more than a century, but is rarely met with in 

 those of this country. It thrives in all soils and positions, and 

 demands no special care or attention. 



Clinlonia borealis is at its best, and an attractive plant, 

 with its yellow, nodding, Lily-like Howers, borne on slen- 

 der scapes above the broad, strap-shaped leaves, which lie 

 close to the ground ; and still more attractive, perhaps, in 

 August, when the tiowers are succeeded by large, bright 

 blue berries. It grows naturally under trees in rather dense 

 shade, and in such positions, when it is transferred to the gar- 

 den, it will be found to flourish, although we have not suc- 

 ceeded yet in inducing it to spread very far ; and seedlings 

 have not appeared yet. The Podophyllum or Mandrake 

 {Podophyllum peltatiiiii) is an easier plant to establish, and one 

 of the most effective in foliage, with its broad, round, five to 

 seven parted leaves, eight or ten inches across, raised a few 

 inches above the ground on stout stems inserted in the centre. 

 They look like miniature umbrellas, and quite hide the 

 handsome, solitary, nodding, white flowers, which grow on 

 separate bi-foliate stems, and the large fruit, which ripens in 

 early summer — the May Apple, well-known to country boys. 

 This plant is found in the low, rich woodlands of the middle 

 and western States, where it is everywhere common. It 

 spreads rapidly from underground creeping root-stalks, and 

 will soon extend far beyond the place allotted to it in the garden. 



Iris cristata, the crested Iris of the Allegheny Mountains, 

 with its lovely pale blue, long-tubed flowers, is in full flower, 

 and certainly one of the most beautiful of all the dwarf spe- 

 cies. It spreads almost too rapidly, however, in the border 

 or in the rock-garden, and it has now been transferred to a 

 half-sunny slope on the edge of a wood, where it has already 

 spread quite widely through a thick sod of Grasses and Sedges, 

 which are unable to greatly retard its growth or to prevent it 

 from flowering freely. It is one of the best plants which has 

 been tried here for naturalizing in such situations, which can 

 often be greatly improved by a cautious introduction of many 

 plants chosen with reference to harmony with their imme- 

 diate surroundings. 



The rare and remarkable Carex Fraseriana is well estab- 

 lished, and has been in bloom for several weeks in the dense 

 shade of an over-spreading bush. It would hardly be taken for 

 a Carex, with its broad leaves and globular heads of flowers, on 

 slender scape-like culms. It is a plant not without beauty 

 when in llower, but its interest is rather botanical than horti- 

 cultural. It is one of the rarest of the genus in America, and 

 is confined to the mountains of Virginia and CaroHna. 



There is a little prairie flower, very familiar to the inhabit- 

 ants of the West, and a pleasant remembrance always to peo- 

 ple who have traveled over the grass-covered plateaus be- 

 yond the Mississippi, known as the Shooting-star from the 

 peculiar form of the flowers. It is the Dodecatheon Meadia 

 of the botanists, a member of the Primrose family, and a 

 beautiful plant in cultivation, with Cyclamen-like flowers, borne 

 in ample umbels at the summit of a stout scape, about a foot 

 high, springing from a cluster of oblong leaves. The corolla is 

 rose-colored or sometimes wliite, with a very short tube, a 

 thickened throat and a large, five-parted, reflexed limb, giving 

 to the flower a fancitid resemblance to a comet or shooting- 

 star. The Dodecatheon has been a popular plant in cultivation 

 for many years, and many varieties have Ijeen raised by gar- 

 deners with cnl.arged flowers of different shades of color, but 

 it is doubtful if any of them are superior in beauty to the wild 

 form of the prairie. It flourishes in full sunlight, is easily 



raised from seed, like most of the other plants of its alliance, 

 is easily transplanted and fairly durable. Just now several 

 masses are in full bloom, and are beautiful and attractive. 



Aubretias are, so to speak, conventional rock-garden plants; 

 that is, they are always included in lists of these plants, and if 

 a beginner in this sort of gardening orders rock-garden plants 

 from a dealer he is pretty sure to find some Aid)retias in his 

 order. They are natives of southern Euroj^e, and several 

 species and a niunber of varieties of the best known of these, 

 A. deltoldea, are in cultivation. This is a charming plant, ad- 

 mirably suited for the margins of rocks, where it can spread 

 and send its slender, trailing stems through the crevices, mak- 

 ing a wide, moss-like mass of pale green, persistent foliage, 

 which is now covered with a sheet of pale purple flowers, 

 large in proportion to the height of the plant, being half an 

 inch across. Not quite hardy here, it requires careful protec- 

 tion in the winter and an open, sunny position. The Aubre- 

 tias may be readily increased by cuttings, or young plants can 

 be raised from seed. 



There are a number of dwarf shrubs now in flower well 

 suited to embellish the rock-garden, where, owing to their 

 dwarf size, they can be seen to better advantage than in the 

 shrubbery, where, too, they are liable to be overcrowded and 

 finally destroyed by more vigorous plants. The best known 

 of these, thanks to Emerson's poem, is the Rhodora (/?. Cana- 

 densis or Rhododendron Rhodora). It is a low, deciduous 

 shrub, growing to a height of two or even three feet, with 

 rosy-colored flowers, which appear before the leaves. It is 

 easily cultivated, and can be readily transplanted from its na- 

 tive swamps into tlie garden, where it will grow and spread 

 quite quickly if deep, peaty soil and an open position are pro- 

 vided for it. The flowers are very short-lived, and two or 

 three days of hot sun quite finishes them. It is one of the 

 plants which looks well only when seen in large masses, as it 

 may be in some parts of northern New England, where some- 

 times covering acres of bog, its flowers look like a soft, rosy 

 flush of light thrown over the ground. A far more beautiful 

 plant in flower, and one of the most beautiful of all our 

 native shrubs, is the little bog Kalmia {K. glauca), a deli- 

 cate plant not more than a foot high, with wiry branches 

 and straggling habit, narrow, revolute leaves, quite white on 

 the lower surface, and few-flowered corymbs of very large, 

 rosy-purple flowers, which make a great show just now. It is 

 not a very easy plant to establish, and it is fastidious always 

 and liable to die if exposed to too great summer heat, but the 

 beauty of the flowers is so great that they are worth a real 

 effort to obtain in good condition. 



Daphne Genkwa is very fine this year, finer than I remem- 

 ber to have seen it, the mild winter having been, no doubt, 

 favorable to the good development of the tubular, lilac-blue 

 flowers, which in color have no counterpart among those of 

 shrubs which are hardy in this climate. It is to be regretted 

 that it is not more hardy here, for it is certainly one of the 

 most attiactive of the dwarf shrubs of Japan, where it is highly 

 prized as a garden-plant and for its reputed medical proper- 

 ties. 



The earliest of the Blueberries are in flower, and few shrubs 

 are more beautiful than some of the dwarf species, like Vacci- 

 nium Pennsylvaniciim and V. Canadense. They make a charm- 

 ing carpet under trees, where they are found growing naturally 

 in half open situations. None of the Vacciniums are very easy 

 plants to manage, but they can be grown by any one who will 

 pay close attention to Mr. Dawson's directions for the manage- 

 ment of these plants published upon page 183 of volume i. of 

 this journal. They have many claims upon the lovers of 

 beautiful plants — good habit and foliage, handsome flowers and 

 fruit and brilliant autumn coloring. 



Boston, May nth. C 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. 



'X'HE Peach is not in this latitude a very reliable flowering 

 -'■ tree, the buds being often destroyed in winters of even 

 ordinary severity. This year, however. Peaches are exception- 

 ally fine, and trees of some of the double-flowered varie- 

 ties have been objects of wonderfid beauty. There are a 

 number of these varieties in cultivation, and new ones ap- 

 pear from time to time ; but the three best worth growing 

 liave been known for many years — they are the double pink, 

 the color of the flowers being almost identical with that of the 

 common Peach of gardens, the double white and the double 

 scarlet, on which the flowers are blood-red. A fourth va- 

 riety, in which the color of the flowers is intermediate almost 

 between those of the pink and of the scarlet varieties, al- 

 though showy and conspicuous, is perhaps a less desirable 

 plant than either of the others. The double scarlet Peach, in 



