338 



Garden and Forest. 



[JULY 17, l5 



Notes Upon Some North American Trees. — I. 



THE last catalogue of the trees of this continent (exclu- 

 sive of Mexico) was published in New York in 1885, in 

 a work entitled "The Woods of the United States," intended 

 as a guide to Mr. Jesup's collection of woods in the 

 American Museum of Natural History. This was a conden- 

 sation, with a few unimportant changes, of the more de- 

 tailed catalogue of our trees which 1 had published the year 

 before in the ninth volume of the Final Reports of the 

 Tenth Census of the United States. Since this catalogue 

 was written I have had the opportunity of studying, for the 

 first time in the field, many of our trees during different 

 journeys undertaken for the purpose, especiall)^ those found 

 in the extreme southern portion of Florida and in the 

 valley of the lower Rio Grande; and to examine in 

 European herbaria, type specimens of many of the old 

 species. A large number of correspondents, moreover, in 

 different parts of the country have continued to favor me 

 with information bearing upon this subject. Questions of 

 nomenclature, too, are now, perhaps, more than ever before 

 occupying the attention of botanical students; and although 

 the subject is perplexing enough in some cases, I cannot any 

 longer delay a discussion of the names which should be 

 applied to our trees, as the first volume of the new " Silva 

 of North America,'' which has engaged my attention pretty 

 continuously during the last ten years, will not, it is to be 

 hoped, be much longer delayed, the plates for the illustra- 

 tions for nearly three volumes being already engraved. It 

 is therefore desirable to print now such changes, from the 

 Census Catalogue, as fuller information than was available 

 when it was written appears to make desirable both as a 

 record of facts and for the purpose of calling out criticism, 

 which, as well as any facts about our trees, it is needless 

 for me to say, will be welcomed from all quarters. I shall 

 now take up, therefore, the Catalogue as it was published 

 in the Census Report, and briefly note such changes as it 

 now seeiTis necessary to make in it. The numbers prefixed 

 to the species are those of the Census Catalogue. 



4. Magnolia cordata, Michx. — Michaux's specimens pre- 

 served in the Museum d' Histoire Naturelle, in Paris, upon 

 which Richard founded this species, have leaves which are 

 not at all cordate, and are clearly that form of M. acuminata, 

 with broadly oval, rarely cordate leaves, more or less 

 pubescent on the lower surface, and rather small, yellow 

 flowers, which Dr. Mohr has found in central Alabama and 

 I have collected on the Blue Ridge, in North and South Car- 

 olina, and which Michaux, as his own labels, still attached to 

 the Paris specimens, show, considered ioh&M. acuminata.'^ 

 I have already proposed for this form, and for the plant 

 known in gardens as M. cordala, the name of M. acu?ni?iala, 

 var. cordata {^Aynerican Journal of Sciences and Arts, 3 ser. 

 xxxii., 466). No wild form, it must be said, has been 

 found just like the one, of unknown origin long preserved 

 in cultivation, which has small, canary-yellow flowers, 

 broadly oval and, occasionally, slightly cordate dark green 

 leaves. Two specimens of this variety may be seen in the 

 Harvard Botanic Garden, where they were found already 

 well-grown trees by Professor Gray in 1842 when he as- 

 sumed control of the garden. The plant so often spoken 

 of by Michaux in his journal as M. cordata was M. Fraseri, 

 Walt. 



5. Magnolia Umbrella. — Linnasus first named this plant 

 M. Virginiana, var. tripetala ( Species Plantarum, 536), 

 and in the second edition of the same work M. tripetala. 

 Lamark, twenty-eight years later ( Encyclopedie Metho- 

 dique, iii., 644), proposed for itthenamey^. Umbrella, quot- 

 ing Linnaeus' name as a synonym, but giving no reason 

 for discarding it. The Lamarkian name was taken up by 

 De CandoUe ( Systema, i., 452), the sentence "petala 

 oblonga concava 9-12 (nee 3 ut vult nomen Linnaeanum)" 

 explaining his reason for so doing. Many botanists, nota- 



*l"he two specimens in Herb. Michx. of Magnolia cordata are labelled in Michaux's 

 handwriting;, the first "Magnolia acuminata florib. fiavis ;" the second '^Magnolia 

 lutea, fol. acuminatis fiorib. luteis, coUines, territoire de Squirel's Creels." 



bly Professor Gray in all his works, have followed Lamark 

 and De CandoUe in discarding the Linncean name, which 

 was based upon the three broad reflexed petaloid sepals of 

 this species, which, as they are not strictly petals, make 

 it, perhaps, inappropriate. But in natural-history nomen- 

 clature it is now well nigh universally acknowledged 

 among working naturalists that a name cannot properly 

 be changed because it happens to be inappropriate. The 

 inappropriateness of the name, moreover, in this particular 

 case is certainly not great enough to warrant its disuse ; 

 and I should therefore propose to take up for this species 

 the name Magnolia tripetala, L. 



13. Clusia flava, L.- — This plant has been considered a 

 native of Key West on the strength of a specimen col- 

 lected by Dr. Blodgett more than fifty years ago. It has 

 now entirely disappeared from the island, and has never 

 been seen on any of the neighboring Keys, so that it may 

 be supposed that Nuttall, who published Dr. Blodgett's 

 discoveries, mistook in the case of this plant, as he did in 

 that of Terminalia Catappa, also included in his supplement 

 to Michaux's Sylva, a cultivated for an indigenous plant. 



17. TiLiA Americana, var. pubescens. — Professor Gray 

 {Proc. Am. Acad., new ser. xxii., 305) has pointed out char- 

 acters ("smaller and mostly thinner leaves, distinctly 

 pubescent beneath, yet often glabrate in age ; floral bract 

 usually rounded at base, except the uppermost; fruit ovoid, 

 usually lightly costate ") which seem to separate this plant 

 specifically from Tilia Americana. The oldest name con- 

 nected with it is T. Caroliniana, of Miller (Dictionary 204), 

 but, as Professor Gray has suggested (/. c. ), Miller's char- 

 acters point to T. Americana, as do those of Wangenheim 

 and Marshall, who followed him in the use of this name. 

 Alton's name, Tilia pubescens, will, therefore, be most safely 

 retained for this tree. 



19. Byrsonima lucida, PIBK. — This plant, as it appears 

 on the Florida Keys, is a low, slender shrub, rarely attain- 

 ing a height of six feet; and I have now no reason to be- 

 lieve that it ever becomes a tree. I should propose, there- 

 fore, to drop it from the North American Silva, unless it is 

 known to become arborescent in the West Indies. 



C. S. Sargent. 



The Sumachs. 



A LL the Sumachs, as the plants of one section of the genus 

 ■^^^ Rhus, of eastern North America are popularly called, 

 are plants of great ornamental value, and if fhey do not now 

 play a more important part in the decoration of American 

 gardens, it is because they are seen so commonly along the 

 borders of the highways or upon rocky slopes, that they are 

 not supposed to be worth a place in the garden or upon the 

 lawn. In Europe they are often planted; mdeed, in the coun- 

 tries of central and northern Europe no exotic plant, with the 

 exception, perhaps, of the American Locust {Robinia Pseudo- 

 Acacia), 'a.wX its varieties, is planted so commonly, oris so gen- 

 erally admired, as the Staghorn Sumach. They are all plants 

 of good habit, with bold and handsome pinnate leaves. The 

 flowers, which are small and greenish-white in color, are not, 

 in themselves, showy or conspicuous, but the great terminal 

 panicles in which they are clustered are striking, from their 

 size and are conspicuous objects. The panicles of fruit, which 

 is a small, dry drupe, covered with scarlet hairs, give great 

 l^eauty to_ the female plants in the autumn, for the Sumachs 

 are dioecious, or mostly so — that is, they produce, ordinarily, 

 male and female flowers upon different individuals. The 

 foliage of all the species turns to an intense scarlet color during 

 the month of October, when some of the most beauflful elfects- 

 of American autumn-coloring are produced bv the great 

 masses of these plants, often found spreading over the rocky 

 hills of the New England and middle States. 



There are three species of Sumach in eastern North 

 America : 



The_ Staghorn Sumach {Rhus typhina) is the largest of 

 them in the northern States, and the one most generally culti- 

 vated in Europe. It reaches sometimes the size and habit of 

 a small tree, thirty or thirty-five feet high, with a trunk eight or 

 ten inches in diameter at the base. This, like the branches, is 

 generally more or less crooked or contorted ; it is covered 

 with a light brown bark, separating sparingly into very thin, 

 flakey scales. The young branches are stout, forked, enfirely 



