July 24, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



349 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 24, 1889. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles: — What is a Sycamore? — How to Mask the Foundations 



o£ a Country House. — I 349 



The Art of Gardening — An Historical Sketch. — VH. Persia, 



Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer. 350 

 Notes Upon Some North American Trees. — II . . . .Professor C. S. Sargent. 351 



Platanus occidentalis (with illustrations) 352 



Foreign Correspondence : — London Letter W. Goldrhig. 352 



Cultural Department : — California Lilies California Florist. 353 



Orchid Notes "Calypso" John Weathers, A. Dimmock, 354 



Planting Roses for Winter Bloom W. H. Taplin. 356 



Notes on Wild Flowers F. H. Horsford. 356 



Two Good Hardy Plants. — Symphyandra Hoffmanni O. 356 



The Rose Season John N. May. 357 



The Vegetable Garden W. H. Bull. 357 



Fine Flavor in Fruit Country Ceniletnan. 357 



Periodical Literature : — 357 



Correspondence :— Forests and Civilization. — III y. B. Harrison. 358 



The Adornment of Gardens D. D. Slade. 359 



The Cranberry Gall Fungus Professor B. D. Halsted. 359 



Notes 360 



Illustrations : — Platanus occidentalis 354 



Platanus occidentaHs. — A Characteristic Western Scene 355 



What is a Sycamore? 



IN an article called "Popular Errors," not long ago 

 printed in a St. Louis newspaper, and thence copied into 

 an eastern journal, the following paragraph appears : 

 "Another error in the application of names is noticeable 



in the vegetable world. 



This is with regard to the so- 



called Sycamore. The true Sycamore {Acer Pseudo-plala- 

 nus) grows only in England, or, at most, in the British 

 Isles. Our tree — Plantanus occidentalis — should be called 

 Button wood. The true Sycamore is as worthless as Buck- 

 eye or Horse Chestnut." 



It would be hard to find more errors combined in a sin- 

 gle paragraph than appear in this one, which was intended 

 to set wrong things exactly right, even if the mistake of 

 printing Pla?2tanus, instead of Platanus, be credited to the 

 printer rather than the author. 



Mistakes and confusions are, however, the very essence 

 of popular plant-naming, and it may therefore be worth 

 while to explain what is the right use of the name Syca- 

 more, and to trace the steps by which it has come to be 

 applied to three entirely different trees — Ficiis sycomoriis, 

 Acer Pseiido- platanus and Platanus occidentalis. 



Not the second, but the first of these, is the ' ' true Syca- 

 more." It is a tree of the Fig Farnily, very common in 

 Palestine, Egypt and Arabia, where it grows to a great 

 height, extends its branches over a wide area, and is 

 much prized for the shade it affords. Its Figs are sweet 

 and delicate, although it is not the species commonly 

 cultivated for fruit. Its wood is light, but very durable, 

 and was largely employed in ancient times. The mummy- 

 cases of the Egyptians, and those wonderful sculptures in 

 the round which have been found in the tombs of their 

 earliest dynasties, were made of it. The name Sycamore 

 is a combination of the two Greek words, Sykon, a Fig, 

 and Moron, a Black Mulberry, and emphasizes the fact that 

 the leaves of this Fig-tree resemble those of a Mulberry. 

 This, then, is the Sycomorus of the Romans, the Syko- 

 moros of the Greeks, the Sycamore of the Bible, the " true 

 Sycamore" for all time. The most famous specimen now 

 existing is perhaps that one not far from Cairo, which is 



believed to be more than two thousand years old, and is 

 pointed out to travelers as the tree under which the Virgin 

 and Child reposed during the flight into Egypt. 



Acer Pseudo-plataniis is a species of Maple. Although 

 commonly called in England simply the Sycamore, it 

 should be called the Sycamore Maple, the qualifying word 

 merely explaining the likeness of its leaves to those of 

 the true Sycamore. The statement that it grows only in 

 the British Isles is far enough from the truth; for, while it is 

 a native of the continent of Europe, and is found growing 

 wild in many places there, especially in Germany, Austria, 

 Switzerland and Italy, the first mention of it as growing on 

 British soil is in Turner's " Herbal," printed in 1551, and 

 all subsequent writers either deny or question the fact that 

 it is indigenous to that soil. Nor is it a "worthless " tree, 

 for its wood is much used in the delicate work of the 

 makers of musical instruments, as well as for many other 

 purposes. Pliny makes especial mention of three species 

 of Maple among many which he believed to exist. One 

 of these is undoubtedly the Sycamore Maple, and it seems 

 to be the Maple mentioned by Virgil, as he speaks of the 

 stature and strength of the tree and the durability of its 

 wood. The confusion of its identity with that of the true 

 Sycamore must have begun very long ago, for Evelyn, in 

 the seventeenth century, mentions the fact that religious 

 persons had then long been accustomed to plant the Syca- 

 more Maple near their homes in the mistaken belief that it 

 was the Sycamore into which Zacharias climbed to see the 

 Saviour pass. For the same reason, its significance in old 

 treatises on the language of flowers is "Curiosity." This 

 tree has been much planted of late years in America, but 

 is never called the Sycamore — always the Sycamore Maple. 

 Platanus occidentalis is the principal American represent- 

 ative of Plata?ius orientalis -^ the Plane tree of modern 

 Europe and of ancient writers. In Europe the name 

 Sycamore is never given to a Plane tree, but in America 

 it seems to have been thus applied from early times, for 

 the younger Michaux, writing early in the century, cites 

 it as an accepted name, others being Buttonwood, Cotton- 

 tree and Water Beech. According to him Plane trees were 

 called Sycamores only in the Western States; but now-a- 

 days, at all events, they are so called in many eastern 

 districts. The fact appears to be that the English who had 

 miscalled a Maple because of its striking, if superficial, 

 resemblance to the true Sycamore, similarly miscalled 

 the Platanus occidentalis, when they emigrated to America, 

 because of its resemblance to the Maple they had left at 

 home. The right name for the western as for the east- 

 ern Platanus, is the Plane tree ; but Buttonwood is a per- 

 fectly legitimate, and, indeed, excellent name, as it has not 

 been applied to any other kind of tree and is picturesquely 

 descriptive of the fruit of the Plane. Water Beech is, of 

 course, a patent misnomer, and Cotton-tree is not appro- 

 priate, and leads to confusion with Cottonwood, a species 

 of Poplar. 



Classic writers constantly refer to the Plane tree, and it 

 was one of the most highly-prized trees of the more tem- 

 perate parts of the Orient. On a Plane tree in Phrygia 

 Marsyas was hung to be flayed by Apollo. Under a 

 grove of giant Planes on an island off the Lacsedemonian 

 coast the youth of Sparta met for athletic exercises, and 

 Pausanias mentions a Plane in Arcadia which was then 

 said to be 1,300 years old and to have been planted by 

 Menelaus. But the most famous Plane tree of antiquity 

 was, perhaps, the one in Lycia, which so delighted Xerxes 

 by its size and beauty that he caused it to be encircled 

 with a collar of gold and delayed a whole day beneath its 

 shade — a fact to which contemporary critics are said to 

 have largely attributed the defeat of his expedition. The 

 so-called "Seven Brothers" are seven huge and magnifi- 

 cent Planes which stand on the shores of the Bosphorus, 

 as they stood when, in 1096, Godfrey de Bouillon and his 

 Crusaders encaiTiped in their vicinity, and are estimated 

 to be at least 1,500 years old. The most famous Plane of 

 our western world, if we may^associate renowns so dis- 



