342 



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Garden and Forest. 



[July 17, 1889. 



living plants of Bjilbophylhim Beccari, whose enormous leaves 

 and massive inHorescence are unequaled by any other Orchid. 

 This plant also Howered at Kew in 1881, and it' is noteworthy 

 that the odor of the flowers was almost as powerful and repel- 

 lent as that of the Amorphophallus. In the account forwarded 

 by Dr. Beccari to the Gardeners' Chronicle of his discovery of 

 the Aroid in 1878, he stated that he found it growing side by 

 side with a Rafflesia (a model of this wonderful parasite is in 

 the Kew Museimi), and that the tuber when dug up was live 

 feet in circumference, and so heavy that two men could 

 scarcely carry it. The solitary leaf was composed of a stalk 

 as thick as a man's thigh, and ten feet high, whilst the blade 

 was many times divided, spreading umbrella-like, with a cir- 

 cumference of forty-five feet. This is a little larger than the 

 leaf borne by the Kew plant last year. The dimensions of the 

 tuber, however, when measured in March of this year, were 

 equal to those of the specimen described by Beccari, and it 

 weighetl exactly fifty-seven pounds. From this we entertained 

 the hope that a flower would be developed at Kew this year, - 

 and the hope has been realized to the fullest extent. Less than 

 a month ago the bud was sufficiently developed to enable us 

 to see that it was a flower-bud, not a leaf-bud ; at that time it 

 was cone-shaped and about a foot high. From this it grew in 

 height at the rate of about three inches a day, till it attained a 

 height of nearly seven feet. The spadix is now five feet 

 long, nearly a foot wide, club-shaped, with irregular de- 

 pressions, and colored pale greenish-yellow. It stands erect 

 in the middle of the liuge bell-shaped spathe, which is three 

 feet deep, three feet eiglit inches across the mouth, the margin 

 wavy and deeply-toothed, with numerous parallel ridges on 

 the outside. Its color is pale green, mottled at the base, 

 almost white on the upper part, whilst inside it is a deep vin- 

 ous purple with a sheen of bluish color. The whole is elevated 

 on a stalk fifteen inches high and six inches in diameter. It is 

 impossible to convey in words any correct idea of the stateli- 

 ness and massive grandeur of this huge inflorescence. The 

 expansion of the spathe took place to-day (21st June), and at 

 once the house where the plant stands was filled with an odor 

 exactly like that of putrid fish. Flies of all kinds were attracted 

 by the smell, and buzzed about the spadix in great numbers.. 

 We cannot guess how long the flowers will remain fresh, but 

 already crowds of people are attracted to the house by the re- 

 ports in the papers concerning this plant. 



Kew obtained a seedling of this Amorphophallus from the 

 Florence Botanic Gardens in 1879, ^'^♦^ ^'^'s has been grown in 

 a moist tropical house until its leaf faded, which usually oc- 

 curred late in Autumn. The tuber was then removed from 

 the soil, well washed, and at ouce placed in a pot filled with 

 moist silver sand. Whilst at rest it was. kept in a stove tem- 

 perature. As soon as the bud showed signs of pushing the 

 tuber was replanted in strong, well-manured soil, and kept 

 perpetually moist. During the last four years the plant has 

 been grown over the tank containing the Victoria regia, its pot 

 standing an inch or two in the water. The gigantic leaf with 

 its noble proportions has been annually a feature of this liouse, 

 so that even apart from its enormous flowers, this plant is 

 worth growing for its leaf alone. . 



There have flowered at Kew this year, in addition to this 

 titanic Aroid, the following giants of the same order, viz.: 

 Amorphophallus campaniilatus, A. virosus and Godwinia gigas. 

 These all have very large inflorescences, tall and handsome 

 foliage, large tubers, and an unpleasant odor. The last is cer- 

 tainly a drawback, but it is more than counterbalanced by the 

 wonderful proportions and extraordinary character of the 

 flowers themselves. 

 Kew. W. Watson. 



Cultural Department. 



Summer Pruning. 



■pRUNING is one of the most important points of garden 

 -*■ practice. When judiciously pruned, a shrub or free can 

 be held at almost any size or changed to almost any form ; 

 and, besides this, a tree or shrub can be made much more 

 productive of fruit and flowers. On the other hand, improper 

 pruning will not only weaken the vigor of a plant, but may 

 destroy all its beauty of outline, and at the same time hinder the 

 production of flowers and of fruit. The shearing of a tree or 

 shrul:i into some formal shape, as of a cone or hemisphere, 

 may have a proper place in some styles of gardening ; but, in 

 general, it may be said that the clipping of trees or shrubs 

 into any set form is radically wrong. I have seen many good 

 collections of shrubs ruined because each one was cut into a 

 shape to resemble all the rest. In this way all individuality is 

 lost, whereas the object of pruning should be to develop what- 



ever beauty each plant possesses on the lines of its natural 

 growth. It is utterly impossible to secure any fine effects in 

 large shrubberies where each individual is trimmed after the 

 same pattern. Evidently the true way is to encourage each 

 one to make the best of its natural graces, and then to ar- 

 range this infinite variety of form into a harmonious picture. 



If we prune for the purpose of increasing the flowers of a 

 shrub or tree, we must prune different species and varieties at 

 ditt'erent seasons of the year ; but surplus wood and suckers 

 can always be thinned out during the summer season, and 

 wounds which are cut clean in midsummer will heal more 

 quickly than those made in frosty weather. Mapjes, Birches, 

 Yellow-woods and many other trees bleed copiously when 

 their branches are cut in the spring, but they heal over more 

 qincklyif pruned while in full leaf. Again, shrubs which bloom 

 on wood made the previous year, of which the early Spiraeas, 

 Forsythias, Honeysuckles, Viburnums, Syringas, Philadelphus 

 and Deutzias are examples, should receive their chief pruning 

 soon after the flowers have fallen. This will encoin-age a 

 growth of young wood with flower-buds for the following 

 year. Of course, when these shrubs are cut back in early 

 spring before flowering, the flower-ljiuds are sacrificed. On 

 the other hand, shrubs like Hydrangea paniciilata, Desmo- 

 diiini pendiilifloruni. Hibiscus Syriaciis and others, which 

 flower on the new growth, bloom more abundantly when cut 

 back severely in early spring. But even in this case the sur- 

 plus wood should be thinned out during the summer. 



With anything like an extensive collection of shrubs con- 

 stant attention must be given to pruning during the whole 

 growing season, and this is especially true where coarse-grow- 

 ing shrubs and those of .delicate habit are planted together. 

 If this is neglected the less robust plants will soon be smoth- 

 ered out by their vigorous neighbors. Many shrubs are 

 pruned too much. If a healthy }Oung plant is carefully pruned 

 at the outset, allowed plenty of room, with all the cross 

 branches cut away to admit light and air, and all the old flow- 

 ering wood shortened in after bloom and the over-strong 

 shoots stopped, at midsummer, it will not only retain all its 

 natural beauty, but this beauty will be increased, and it will be 

 full of flowers the next year. After the branches of large 

 shrubs have been thinned out, stronger shoots should be 

 pinched back with the thumb and finger, for this will hasten 

 the growth of flowering-buds. Many trees and shrubs can be 

 made to produce flowers and fruit at a smaller size than if 

 they were left to themselves or pruned only in the winter or 

 spring. This summer pinching also helps to ripen up the 

 wood, and leaves it in good condition to withstand the cold. 

 I have known trees which were tender, when left to grow nat- 

 urally, to endure our winters fairly well when the wood had 

 been properly stopped by pinching it in summer. This is 

 especially true in wet seasons, when the branches often con- 

 tinue to grow until the frost kills them. Apples, Peaches, 

 Plums, Filberts and many other trees can be made to bear 

 when quite small if the new growth is stopped once or twice 

 in the summer. I now have Peach-trees five or six feet high 

 which are loaded with fruit, the result of pinching back in 

 summer. While trees are' growing vigorously the flcwer-buds 

 do not form well, but by this summer pinching the flow of the 

 sap is checked and the buds are developed. Many plants also 

 ripen their fruit better when the strong shoots above the fruit 

 have been stopped. Young trees can be easily trained with 

 very little use of the knife when they are taken in time, the 

 surplus buds rubbed off from the lateral branches and the 

 branches properly pinched back. In short, summer prun- 

 ing is useful and indispensable for the removal of super- 

 fluous branches in the middle of the tree or shrub, and for 

 theshortening-in of all over-vigorous branches and such as in- 

 terfere with the native symmetry of the tree ; and by thinning 

 out the weak and misplaced branches additional nourishment 

 is supplied to those that remain. 



Arnold Arboretum. J acksOn DaWSOtl. 



The Vitality of Seeds. 



MOST books on horticulture contain tables showing the 

 number of years that the seeds of garden plants remain 

 " good" — that is, retain their germinating strength substantially 

 unimpaired. These tables, compiled by different writers, 

 do not quite agree ; yet they are not widely discrepant. Of 

 late, our agricultural experiment stations have been engaged 

 in testing the vitality of seeds sent out by dealers ; and these 

 reports show a considerable amount of difterence. It is, un- 

 questionably, a wide-spread practice among seedsmen to mix 

 old stock with new ; and in some conspicuous cases this has 

 been shown, by the station experiments, to have been carried 



