July 31, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



365 



they were in search of was by describing it as "a hairy 

 Hucl<leberry ; " and at Robbinsville, the county-seat of 

 Graham County, a man was met with who had " heard 

 tell " of such a thing. A promised reward of five dollars 

 for specimens of the plant set all the boys in the county 

 astir, for hve dollars is a great sum of money in Graham 

 County, North Carolina ; and during the following summer 

 I received a box of Vaccinium fruit covered with short 

 white hairs, from Mr. W. F. Manney, of Robbinsville, 

 who had marked some of the plants from which this fruit 

 was gathered, and later sent a supply of grafts and seed- 

 ling plants to the Arboretum. Some of these flowered in 

 the spring of last year, and Mr. Faxon was enabled to 

 make the drawing 

 which is reproduced 

 upon this page. 



Vaccin in ni li irs uiu m * 

 is, according to Mr. 

 Buckley's description, 

 a low shrub one or two 

 feet high. The stems 

 are ereen, g-rooved, 

 obscurely four-angled; 

 those of the year, 

 covered with stout, 

 spreading white hairs, 

 which cover also the 

 lower surface of the 

 leaves, the calyx, cor- 

 olla, and dark blue, 

 globose fruit. The 

 leaves are ovate, en- 

 tire, tipped with a mi- 

 nute mucro, and an 

 inch and a half long. 

 The ovoid campanu- 

 late corollas, minutely 

 five-lobed, are nearly 

 half an inch long and 

 pure white ; they are 

 borne on one to two 

 bracted-pedicles in 

 terminal or axillary 

 racemes. 



The hairy flower and 

 fruit of this species 

 will serve to readily 

 distinguish this plant, 

 of which nothing 

 is known, practically, 

 with regard to its geo- 

 graphical distribution 

 or the situations in 

 which it grows— in- 

 formation which bot- 

 anical travelers in the 

 extreme western cor- 

 ner of North Carolina 

 will soon, it is to be 



hoped, be able to fur- 

 nish, for it is hardly probable that another half century will 

 pass before this little shrub is found again. 



The plants sent to the Arboretum have flourished, and 

 were covered in June this year with their handsome 

 flowers. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 

 "P NGLISH gardens have this year been deprived of a great 

 *--' deal of their accustomed June brightness by the scarcity 

 of Rhododendron bloom. This is attributable, no doubt, to 

 the excessive rain last summer, which was conducive rather to 

 the formation of leaf than of flower-buds. We hope, however, 



* Vaccinium hirsuium, Buckley in Am. Jour. Sci., xiv., 175. — Gray, Syn. Flora N. 

 America, ii., i, 23. 



that we shall reap the benefit of this strong leaf-growth next 

 season, when, if this summer is warm and dry, the flower- 

 crop will be of unusual splendor. The failure of such a popu- 

 lar garden-plant in setting flower-buds is a serious matter to 

 the large growers of Rhododendrons, as there is an enormous 

 trade in spring with Rhododendron-plants which give good 

 promise of bloom. Many customers, too, go to the nurseries 

 and select the sorts they most admire when in bloom. The 

 failure has been general throughout the country, although it 

 has not visibly affected the exhibitions of the flower that are 

 annually made at Hyde Park and various other places in Lon- 

 don. You notice it most in the nin-series where the Rhodo- 

 dendron is a specialty, and in no place more than in the exten- 

 sive nurseries at Knap Hill, in Surrey, where no fewer than 

 sixty acres are devoted solely to Rhododendrons and other 



so-called American 

 plants. Usually these 

 sixty acres are ablaze 

 with color from the mid- 

 dle of May till the end 

 of June, furnishing a 

 spectacle probably un- 

 equalled in any part oi: 

 the world. But though 

 the flower-crop was not 

 abundant, the nursery, 

 as I saw it the other 

 day, was delightful, and 

 you seemed to enjoy 

 occasional glints of 

 color amid the greenery 

 much more than if the 

 place was all bright with 

 bloom. One could 

 readily discern that 

 there are some sorts of 

 Rhododendron that pro- 

 duce a crop of bloom 

 no matter what the pre- 

 vious season has been. 

 I made note of a few of 

 the favorite sorts that 

 carried abundant 

 flowers, and among 

 them are Mrs. H. Inger- 

 soil, John Walter, J. 

 Marsl-.all Brooks, C. S. 

 Sargent, Lady Arm- 

 strong, Pink Everestia- 

 num, A. B. Mifford, 

 Mrs. Arthur Hunnewell, 

 Mrs. J. Glutton (one of 

 the finest whites), 

 RoseumElegans, Album 

 Elegans, and the ever 

 popiflar Lady Eleanor 

 Cathcart. These were 

 some of the most con- 

 spicuous which had car- 

 ried their flower-buds 

 through a most trying- 

 winter and spring, which 

 is valuable testimony to 

 their hardiness. But 

 some ver)- beautiful 

 sorts cannot so with- 

 stand the elements, and 

 it is painful to see how 

 splendid sorts, such as Kate Waterer, for example, have their 

 flower-buds killed by the frosts of early spring. The secret of 

 raisino- thoroughly hardy Rhododendrons lies in the breeding 

 from tJie robus't and hardv R. Catawbienses.iva.m, and this is what 

 is done exclusively by i\ir. Anthony Waterer. The new seed- 

 lings which I went to see specially were not up to the mark 

 this year though last year among 'the virgin seedlings there 

 were some starfling novelties in color, in size, shape and truss, 

 and these would have been finer still this year after another 

 season's growth. One would have thought that the climax of 

 perfection in Rhododendrons had been reached long ago, but 

 one can see great improvements in the new sorts in color 

 especially. Some have white flowers, with the petals^ mar- 

 gined more or less widely with bright colors, others again are 

 spotted heavily like show Pelargonium-flowers. 



Though the' Rhododendrons were only moderate this year, 

 their relatives, the Azaleas, were superlatively fine, and a wet 



hirsutum.- — See page 364. 



