266 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 5, 1889. 



Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach, for twenty-six years Pro- 

 fessor of Botany and Director of the Botanic Garden at 

 Hamburg, and the most learned orchidographer, is dead in 

 his sixty-seventh year. It was as a student of Orchids that 

 Professor Reichenbach was best known to the present gen- 

 eration of botanists and horticuUurists ; his earhest labors, 

 however, were devoted to general botany ; and he did good 

 service in assisting his father in the preparation of his now 

 classical " Icones Flora; Germaniae et Helvetiae, " drawing 

 with his own hand no less than 1,500 of the plates, and 

 editing the linal volumes after the death of the elder Reich- 

 enbach. The first of these devoted to Orchids was pub- 

 lished in 185 1 — the result of ten years study of the family — 

 and was his first important work upon the subject. He 

 contributed the Orchids to Walpers' " Annales ; " and in the 

 "Xenia Orchidacea," a work which has appeared irregu- 

 larly in parts since 1851, nearly a thousand figures of 

 Orchids from his pencil have been published. 



On the death of Lindley, in 1865, Professor Reichenbach 

 became the recognized authority on Orchids, and his time 

 has ever since been occupied in determining and naming 

 the immense numbers of new species which have poured 

 in upon him from all sources, and from all parts of the 

 world. He was overwhelmed with material which he was 

 never able to reduce to systematic order and make really 

 available. His knowledge of details was enormous, but 

 his mind was hardly a logical one in the broadest sense, 

 and lacked precision and the power of grasping clearly the 

 material at his disposal. Knowing Orchids as no one has 

 ever known them, he never produced the systematic 

 synopsis even of the genera and species which the world 

 expected from him. But if the crowning work was left 

 unfinished by Reichenbach, his labors have made its 

 accomplishment by his successors possible, if not easy. 



He realized fully the value of the garden collections of 

 Orchids in their influence upon his studies, and there has 

 not been a prominent grower in Europe of these plants 

 during the last forty years whom Professor Reichenbach 

 has not aided with sound information and friendly counsel. 

 His sympathies and interests were broad as the surface of 

 the globe ; and not long ago we received a number of 

 letters from him deploring the excessive importation of our 

 hardy Orchids and other delicate herbaceous plants into 

 Europe, and urging us to cry a halt upon this wanton and 

 unnecessary destruction, which he felt could only end in 

 utterly eradicating some of the most charming plants of 

 the American flora. 



It is not evident upon whom the Orchid mantle transmit- 

 ted by Lindley to Reichenbach will now descend, or who 

 there is that can take up the tangled web which has fallen 

 from the hands of our learned and kind old friend. 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China. — III. 



Gymnocladus Chinensis. — Easily distinguished from the 

 North American species by its smaller, oblong and more 

 numerous leaflets and much thicker pod. It is the Soap-tree 

 of China, the beans of which are used by the Chinese women 

 to wash their hair. Described as a very handsome tree, grow- 

 ing in the provinces of Anwhei, Ciiekiang, Kiangsi andHupeh; 

 figured in Hooker's Icones Plantaruni, t. 1412. It is in culti- 

 vation, I believe, in England and Fi'ance. 



Viola. — Violets abound in China, though recent collections 

 have no new, specially ornamental species. V. Websteri is a 

 very distinct plant with long, unbranched stems, furnished in 

 the lower part with membranous sheaths in the place of 

 leaves, and those on the upper part of the stems are long and 

 narrow. The flowers are small. 



Impatiens. — Several new species of this genus have been 

 discovered, and, as far as one can judge from dried speci- 

 mens, some of them are very pretty, notably /. tubulosa, de- 

 scribed in the " Index," i., p. 102. Since the description was 

 drawn up much better specimens have been received from 

 Dr. Henry. 



Psilopeganum Sinense. — An interesting new genus of the 

 Rutace(2 allied to Boenninghausenia and the American genus 

 Thamnosma, figured in the "Index," i., t. 3, p. 103. It is a 



dwarf, herbaceous plant, with numerous, slender stems 

 springing from a common stock, trifoliolate leaves, and small 

 yellow flowers arranged singly nearly opposite the leaves ; 

 mentioned here on account of its botanical features, though 

 horticulturists no longer concentrate all their care and thoughts 

 on showy subjects. 



Xa7ithoxylnvi. — About fifteen species of this genus ai^e now 

 known to inhabit China, and some of the northern ones are 

 certainly worthy of the attention of persons desirous of culti- 

 vating variety in shrubs. There are four or five from the 

 extreme north, and X. dissitum from the neighborhood of 

 Ichang, is a handsome shrub, or small tree, with ample pin- 

 nate leaves. 



Kcelretiteria bipinnaia.—Descnhed as a very ornamental tree, 

 from the hills near Ning-Po. It is figured and described in the 

 Revue Horticole, 1888, p. 393. In foliage it is more like Ailantus 

 than that of the old K.paniculata, that is to say, in the shape and 

 size of the separate leaflets. Judging from dried specmiens, 

 the. flowers are very similar. This tree is in cultivation in 

 Europe. In the Kew Herbarium are specimens from Kwang- 

 tung of what appears to be a third species of this genus, with 

 foliage almost exactly like that of a Gleditschia. 



Muciina (| Stizolobiuni) sempervirens. — This is a new shrub- 

 by evergreen climber or trailer, producing branches of enor- 

 mous length, like Wistaria Sinensis; but it is doubtful whether 

 it would bear the same amount of cold. Wistaria Sinensis 

 ranges from the mountains near Peking to Ning-Po, and Kin- 

 kiang and Ichang, if not even further south. Indeed there is 

 a specimen in the Kew Herbarium from Hong Kong, collected 

 by Wright, though without any indication of its origin, whether 

 wild or cultivated. When this beautiful shrub was introduced 

 into England, about the year 1816, it was nearly killed by being 

 placed in a hot-house. At the same time Rhynchospermzitn, 

 or Trachelospertnumjasminoides, will flourish in a hot-house 

 and flower abundantly, and almost equally as well out-of-doors 

 in the south-west of England. Of this I have seen specimens 

 from the hills near Shanghai, as well as from Formosa and 

 Hong Kong and Ichang, and Maximowicz reports it from the 

 north-west provinces of Shensi and Kansuh. Therefore, Mu- 

 ciina sempervirens may prove hardy in the south and west of 

 England and in similar climates. Respecting the climate of 

 Ichang, Dr. Henry says that it is considerably milder than that 

 of Shanghai, especially in the winter, and that very good 

 Oranges are grown there. As there is not niore than a degree 

 of difference in the latitudes of the two places, one would have 

 supposed the contrary to be the case, Shanghai being on the 

 coast and Ichang between four or five hundred miles inland. 

 Dr. Henry describes the flowers as very large, purplish and 

 somewhat fleshy, but when I described the plant, we had only 

 quite young tlower-buds, though flowers from Ning-Po were 

 suspected to belong to this species. This point has not yet 

 been settled, and later consignments by Dr. Henry are not 

 accessible at the present moment. On the other hand, M. 

 Franchet, who is elaborating the magnificent collections made 

 by the Abbe' Delavay, sends to Kew, flowers from the much 

 more elevated region of Yun-Nan, which he identifies -^nWxMu- 

 ctma seinpervirens, after having seen authentic fruiting speci- 

 mens. These flowers are not more than half the size of those 

 alluded to above from Ning-Po, which are two and a half to 

 three inches long, and certainly do not belong to the same 

 species ; yet, the Yun-Nan flowers may belong to M. sempervi- 

 rens, and their relatively small size be due to a colder cli- 

 mate. It seems unlikely that Dr. Henry would have described 

 the Yun-Nan flower as very large. Be that as it may, there is a 

 living, flourishing plant at Kew, and we may not have long to 

 wait for fresh flowers. Dr. Henry writes to the effect that the 

 creeper from which specimens were taken occurs on the 

 banks of the Yangtse, and is remarkable for its size and beauty. 

 It extends along the face of the bank, and is supported by trees 

 and rocks. The diameter of the main stem is sometimes as 

 much as a foot. The flowers are succeeded by pods a foot 

 long constricted between the seeds. 



Gleditschia. — Further material is still required for the exact 

 delineation of the Chinese species of this genus. One thing is 

 clear, the Hong Kong species, formerly associated with G. 

 Chinensis, is quite distinct, and has been described and figured 

 under the name of G. australis. It is remarkably different in 

 the pod, which is sessile, relatively short, more or less curved, 

 very much compressed, except where distended by the seeds, 

 thus having a bullate appearance. G. Chinensis and G. macra- 

 cantha are apparently distinct species. The latter differs from 

 the former, not only in its larger spines and larger leaflets, but 

 also in having a very hairy ovary, and a long, straight, flat, 

 nearly sessile pod, containing nearly quadrate, flat seeds, about 

 a third of an inch long. Only cultivated specimens of G. 



