June 5, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



267 



macracantha are known, and of these there are some in the Kew 

 Herbarium from Calcutta, St. Helena and European gardens. 

 What has been taken as true G. Sinensis has a much longer- 

 stalked pod, and the ovary is glabrous. The leaf characters 

 offei^ed by herbarium specimens afford little aid in the eluci- 

 dation of the species. G. Japonica, as represented in our her- 

 barium, has oblong, scarcely at all oblique leaflets, and only 

 very young pods, so that no correct idea of the species can be 

 formed therefrom. Both G. Chinensis and G. macracantha 

 were founded on garden specimens, hence the confusion and 

 difficulties that have arisen. G. heterophylla is a very distinct, 

 shrubby species, from north China, having small leaflets, and 

 a very short, thick pod. I am not aware that this is in culti- 

 vation. 



^Esciilus. — ^Until quite recently it was supposed that ^sculus 

 Chinensis was in cultivation. In 1887 a young tree bore fruit 

 in the celebrated arboretum at Segrez, and on comparison with 

 type specimens it proved to be the Japanese yE. hirbinata, 

 which is easily distinguished from the Chinese species by the 

 much larger, fewer Howers in the clusters, and the broader 

 leaflets of a rusty brown beneath. Al. hirbinata forms a small 

 round-headed tree, hardy in the north of France and south of 

 England. In foliage it is not unlike the common Horse-chest- 

 nut, but the leaves are borne on longer petioles and are fawn- 

 colored on the under surface. The flowers are somewhat 

 smaller and similarly colored, pink and white, with brown 

 anthers. A colored figure may be seen in the Japanese iV^ows'O 

 Zonfon, part LXII, plate 17, and the fruit is figured and de- 

 scribed in the Revue Horticole, 1888, p. 496. 



Kew. W. Botting Hemsley. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



The Carolina Hemlock.* 



THE fact that a coniferous tree of respectable size and of 

 considerable multiplication could escape notice for 

 nearly a century in a region so carefully explored as the 

 hilly portions of North and South Carolina is an example of 

 the difficulty of learning thoroughly the trees of a country, 

 and of the danger of being deceived about them — a danger 

 which even the most careful and experienced observer of 

 forests cannot always avoid. It was not suspected mitil 

 1850, when Professor L. R. Gibbes noticed the differ- 

 ence in the Carolina trees, that there were two very 

 distinct species of Hemlock growing in eastern America. 

 William Bartram, who, three-quarters of a century before, 

 explored the very region where the second species 

 abounds, the two Michaux, father and son, as sharp- 

 eyed tree-lookers, or, to use the more picturesque ex- 

 pression of the West, ' ' tree-sharps," as our woods have 

 ever seen, who crossed and recrossed the region a 

 dozen times ; and, much later. Dr. M. A. Curtis, whose 

 knowledge of the southern mountain-flora has never been 

 equaled — all failed to notice, or, if they noticed, to record 

 the distinct, compact habit, the darker green foliage and the 

 larger cones, with broader spreading scales, of the Caro- 

 lina Hemlock. 



The Carolina Hemlock is a small tree, rarely attaining a 

 height of more than sixty feet. It prefers the rocky banks 

 of streams, at elevations of from 2,500 or 3,000 feet, although 

 it is sometimes found on rocky slopes fully 1,000 feet higher. 

 It is never gregarious, however, and it is rare to find more 

 than half a dozen trees growing together. The two Hem- 

 locks maybe seen sometimes growing side by side with 

 their branches intermingled, when their distinctive char- 

 acteristics are made very apparent. No intermediate or 

 connecting form has yet been noticed. The territory 

 through which this tree is distributed is not a large one, 

 and consists of that portion of the Blue Ridge which lies in 

 Transylvania, Jackson and Macon Counties, North Caro- 

 lina, and in the adjacent parts of South Carolina, at least as 



* "Tsug-a Carolhiiana, n. sp., a small tree of the southern Allegheny Mountains, 

 with larger (six to eight hnes long, three-quarters to one line wide), darker leaves 

 than the common Hemlock Spruce, retuse or often notched at tip, without stomata 

 above, beneath witii two pale bands each with seven or eiglit series of stomata, 

 strengthening cells under the epidermis or keel, mid-rib, and edges ; cones twelve 

 to fourteen lines long, scales oblong, much larger than wide, in 8-13 order, spread- 

 ing at right angles at maturity, troad bracts, slightly and obtusely cuspidate; 

 scales (two lines long) with numerous (fifteen to twenty) small oil vesicles on the 

 under side, twice shorter than the wing." Engelmann in Botanical Gazette, vi., 223. 

 —Sargent, Report, Tenth Census, U. 6'.,"vol. ix., 207 ; Gardeners' Chronicle, siSMi! 780, 



far as Csesar's Head, an outlying spurin Greenville County, 

 South Carolina. Our illustration upon page 269, from a 

 photograph by Mr. E. E. Brown, of Asheville, North 

 Carolina, gives an idea of one feature of the scenery of 

 the Blue Ridge — the mountain torrents which pour down 

 through deep-cut rock gorges, over rocky and precipitous 

 beds. It represents the falls of Little River, in Trans}^^ 

 vania County, North Carolina, and the coniferous trees 

 seen on the banks are large and old specimens of the 

 Carolina Hlemlock. The stage road between Henderson- 

 ville, in North Carolina, and Csesar's Head, passes by this 

 spot, which is one of the most accessible stations of our 

 tree. It is ten miles from "Buck Forest Hotel," once a 

 famous hunting resort for Carolina sportsmen in the days 

 before railroads destroyed the remoteness and much of 

 the charm of this region, which can still boast, however, 

 some of the finest and most rugged scenery in all eastern 

 America, and a flora unsurpassed on the Continent in 

 beauty and variety. C. S. S. 



Syringa Amurensis. 



A FLOWER-CLUSTER of Syringa Amurensis, taken 

 from a plant growing in the Arnold Arboretum, 

 appears in our illustration upon page 271. This is the 

 best known and most commonly cultivated of the Lilacs 

 with white flowers, in which the tube of the corolla is short, 

 and which belong to the section Ligustrijia, so called from 

 the resemblance of the flowers to those of the Ligustrum, 

 or Privet. 



Syringa Amurensis is a spreading shrub of graceful 

 habit, growing here to a height of six or eight feet. The 

 leaves are ovate or oblong, obtuse, or often acuminate, as on 

 the specimen selected for our illustration, and are contracted 

 into a long, slender petiole. The panicle of flowers is 

 sometimes erect, and sometimes pendulous by the curving 

 of the slender branches. It is short and compact, or more 

 often long, one-sided, and sparsely flowered. The small 

 creamy-white flowers are destitute of agreeable odor; they 

 appear here from the 15th to the 20th of June. 



Syringa Amurensis is a native of Manchuria, where it 

 was discovered in 1857 by the Russian botanist, Radde. 

 A few years later it was introduced into cultivation through 

 the agency of the St. Petersburg garden, to which Maack sent 

 seeds from the valleys of the Amour and the Ussuri. 

 Syringa Amurensis, as might have been expected, is per- 

 fectly hardy here. It is interesting botanically as the type 

 of a very distinct and little known form of Lilac, while as 

 an ornamental plant it possesses considerable value. 



c. s. s. 



Cultural Department. 



Summer Propagation of Shrubs. 



MANY of our choice shrubs can be readily propagated 

 during the summer from green-wood cuttings, at much 

 less cost than at any other time of the year ; the material is 

 more plentiful and more easily procured, and no fire heat is 

 required. A much longer season, too, is available, another 

 important advantage where large quantities of plants are re- 

 quired. The green-house can then be used in winter for 

 the plants of more difficult propagation. Either a green- 

 house or frames, or both, are required, according to the num- 

 ber of plants to be propagated. A house forty feet long by 

 eighteen feet wide, with two side benches three feet wide, and a 

 centre bench six feet wide, will, under good management, be 

 able to turn out, with the aid of frames in which to harden off 

 the plants, many thousand of the easy rooting kinds, between 

 June and October, after which it can be cleared out and 

 made ready for winter work. Many kinds of material have 

 been used by propagators to strike cuttings in, but I have 

 found nothing better than clear, sharp sand, not too coarse, 

 but free from clay and iron rust. Sand that has been ex- 

 posed to sun and air for some time is best, but it can be used 

 fresh from the pit, if carefully selected. The sand should be 

 spread on the benches from two to three inches deep for any 

 ordinary soft-wood cuttings, and at this time of the year it is 

 not necessary to drain a bed of this slight depth, if it is care- 

 fully looked after. 



