June 19, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



291 



king's expedition to Bazaria, a far-off district lying east of tlie 

 Caspian Sea between Parthia and Bactriana, he says : "Of the 

 barbaric splendor prevailing in these parts there are no 

 stronger marks than the extensive forests in which are shut 

 up untamed beasts of the grandest kinds. ... In one park it 

 was said the game had remained undisturbed through four 

 generations." Our idea of the size of these parks is enhanced, 

 furthermore, by the statement that Alexander entered one of 

 them with his whole army when preparing for a lion-hunt. 

 Pliny tells us that Cambyses planted trees in Egypt. Syria was 

 long a Persian stronghold, and so, too, the whole of Asia 

 Minor, and in both regions many gardens are named which 

 seem to bespeak the fact. A royal paradise, for instance, that 

 had been established by the conquerors at Sidon, was de- 

 stroyed in an insurrection under Artaxerxes Ochus in the 

 fourth century B. C. Of course by the time of Strabo and 

 Diodorus the Greeks and Romans had supplanted the Persians 

 in eastern Asia. But, as we shall see, the Greeks and Romans 

 themselves had learned the luxury of gardens from the Per- 

 sians. The same infiuence doubtless penetrated with the 

 armies of Alexander and his various successors into the 

 Indian peninsula. In mediaeval times we find the favored 

 land of Persia, under the rule of a new race and faith, still the 

 centre of sumptuous living and its .handmaid, gardening art. 

 And, in short, a study of the early history of the art of gard- 

 ening leaves us convinced that the Persians were much 

 more potent than any other people in its development and ex- 

 tension. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



New York. 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China. — IV. 



^senilis Chitiensis is a tree of altogether more slender pro- 

 portions than Al. turbinata; the relatively small flowers, the 

 color of which I have not found described, are borne in long, 

 narrow, dense panicles, and the small fruit is quite smooth. 

 This species inhabits the mountains near Peking, and 

 Maximowicz also reports it from the province of Shensi. 

 This, doubtless, would be quite hardy in the southern and 

 western parts, at least, of the British Islands, if not tlirough- 

 out, and in similar cHmates in the New World. 



Aiccuba. — Dr. Henry has sent specimens of a very singular 

 variety of A. Japonica, very different from anything I have 

 seen in cultivation. The peculiarity is in the shape of the 

 leaves, which are from five to six inches long and exactly 

 wedge-shaped, with a truncate, coarsely-toothed apex, the 

 tooth formed by the excurvent midrib being two or three 

 times as long as the others. The other teeth all result from 

 excurvent veins, which are given at an angle of about 40". In 

 some of the specimens the apex is shallowly three-lobed, the 

 central lobe, the smallest, being an acuminate prolongation of 

 the midrib and a narrow portion of the blade, whilst the lateral 

 lobes are rounded and four to six-toothed. Horticulturally 

 this is more distinct than many of the species of botanists, 

 though the difference is all in the shape of the leaves. A con- 

 siderable series of specimens are all from the neighborhood 

 of Ichang, where tliis shrub grows two to four feet high, 

 according to notes accompanying the specimens. Among 

 evergreens of known hardiness this is one of the most desira- 

 ble in our recent Chinese collections. 



Buddleia. — An investigation of the Chinese species of this 

 genus has led to the discovery that the plant cultivated in 

 European gardens under the name B. curviflora is not the 

 species described and so named by Hooker and Arnott. The 

 latter is a native of the Loo Choo Islands, and probably less 

 hardy than the one passing under the same name, which 

 inhabits Japan, and is apparently restricted to that country. 

 Moreover, it is the only one common in Japan, hence I have 

 named it B. Japonica. There is a very good figure of it in 

 tlie Illustration Horticole (xvii., 1870, pp. 133, f. 25), showing 

 the prominently four-winged branches which, with other 

 characters, distinguish it "from B. curviflora, Hooker and 

 Arnott. 



One of the first fruits of Fortune's journey to China on be- 

 half of the Horticultural Society of London was Buddleia 

 Lindleyana {Botanical Register, 1846, t. 4), which he met with 

 on landing at Chusan in November, 1843. He obtained seeds 

 and posted them on the first opportunity, and in the following 

 March there were young plants growing in the Society's gar- 

 den. This was regarded as a striking illustration of the rapid 

 communication then existing between England and the far 

 East. I have seen this in a living state on very few occasions — 

 that is to say, in flower — but it is a beautiful plant, much more 

 so than one would imagine from the figure. Dr. Henry col- 

 lected an elegant variety of this species in the neighborhood 

 of Ichang with sinuately-lobed, long, taper-pointed leaves. 



The new species of Buddleia offer nothing strikingly orna- 

 mental, though one I have named B. albiflora is well worth a 

 trial, and if hardy, or rather where it is hardy, it would, doubt- 

 less, prove attractive. It is a tree from twenty to thirty feet 

 high, with papery, lanceolate leaves, from six to nine inches 

 long, and small white flowers in long, narrow, dense, terminal 

 panicles. It is from the Patung district, which, as already 

 pointed out, has a considerable elevation, and where there 

 is a long stretch of what Dr. Henry regards virgin forest. B. 

 variabilis, another new shrubby species, is remarkable for the 

 great diversity exhiljited by its foliage, both in size and in the 

 indumentum, as well as in the shape. Taking the extreme 

 forms, one would not suppose them to belong to the same 

 species, and in aspect there is indeed less resemblance be- 

 tween them than there is between them and B. albiflora. Thus 

 one variety from Ichang has narrow, oblong, entire leaves, 

 from one and a half to two and a half inches long, with a short 

 whitish tomentum beneath. The other extreme is from the 

 mountains of Szechuen at an elevation of 6,000 feet. In this 

 the largest leaves are nearly a foot long and broad in propor- 

 tion, with a coarsely crenate margin, and the two at each node 

 are connected by large ear-like expansions from one petiole to 

 the other. Intermediate forms of every grade are contained 

 in the rich collections of Dr. Henry and the Rev. E. Faber. 

 The flowers are described as pink outside and orange inside ; 

 and as they are produced in large pendulous panicles they 

 must have a very pretty effect. 



Jasmimim. — Among the old Chinese Jessamines none is a 

 greater favorite in England than J. nudiflorum (^Botanical 

 Register, 1846, /. 48), another of Fortune's numerous introduc- 

 tions. Against a wall it flowers freely with us in midwinter, 

 when there is almost nothing else, and the showy yellow blos- 

 soms are set off by the green branchlets in the absence of 

 leaves at this season. I have seen only cultivated specimens 

 of this species from China although M. Franchet [PlantcE David- 

 iancE, i., p. 206) records it as common on both slopes of the Tsew- 

 glin range of mountains in the northern province of Shensi. 



There are several new species, the most interesting among 

 them being J. Sinense and J. serophyllum. The former 

 inhabits the provinces of Hupeh and Kwangtung, and would 

 almost certainly require the protection of a green-house 

 except in the very mildest parts of the United Kingdom. It 

 has rather large, softly hairy, trifoliolate leaves and terminal 

 clusters of long, narrow, white flowers ; and, judging from 

 dried specimens only, it must be a very ornamental plant. J . 

 serophyllum is from Mount Omei, in the province of Szechuen, 

 at an elevation of 5,000 feet. This likewise has trifoliolate 

 leaves, and in aspect strongly resembles the Indian J. cauda- 

 tum {^Botanical Register, 1842, t. 26), but the somewhat smaller 

 flowers are described as yellow. J . pachyphyllnm is a new 

 species from the island of Lantao, below Canton, and is allied 

 to J . paniculatum, of which there is a very poor representa- 

 tion in the Botanical Register (ix., 1823, /. 690), but the new 

 species has very thick, almost orbicular, leaflets. 



Diospyros.' — Dr. Henry sends numerous specimens of the 

 important Z>. Art/tz from the province of Hupeh, and as he 

 does not state the contrary, I assume that they were taken 

 froin wild trees. He calls it the oil, or varnish Persimmon, 

 and mentions that an oil is obtained from the fruit and is used 

 for waterproofing the common Chinese umbrellas and hats. 

 There are four or five new species, none probably of any 

 really ornamental character, though it is difficult to judge of 

 this from dried material. D. Sinensis, from Mount Omei, at 

 4,000 feet, is apparently a shrub, with small leaves and slender 

 branchlets, and a small apheroidal fruit about three-quarters 

 of an inch in diameter. 

 Kew. W. B. Heinsley. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Syringa Japonica. 



THE late W. S. Clark, the first President of the Massa- 

 chusetts Agricultural College, in the autumn of 1876 

 sent to the Arnold Arboretum from Japan, where he had 

 gone to organize an agricultural college at Sapporo, in the 

 northern island, a small collection of seeds. Among them 

 were seeds of a plant belonging to the Oleacece, and de- 

 scribed as a small tree. A number of specimens were 

 raised ; these flowered for the first time four years ago, 

 and proved to be the Syringa Japonica of Maximowicz, 

 which had not, I believe, been introduced previously into 

 cultivation. Our illustration upon page 293 represents the 

 largest specimen of this tree growing in the Arboretum, 

 and now about eighteen feet in height. That upon page 



