388 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 14, iJ 



his lilood was tlil'lcrcnt, and with it his wiiolc mental and spir- 

 itual attitude. As were the Greeks and Romans, so, broadly 

 spcalcins^, are their deseeadants of to-day in the south of 

 Europe ; as are to-day the peoples oi: the nortli of Europe, so, 

 broadly speaking-, must have been their ancestors in central 

 Asia. The Teutonic inlluence has now largely permeated the 

 south, and the classic intluence has spread everywliere at the 

 north ; but fiuidamental, racial characteristics liave nowhere 

 been .obliterated, and whenever a genuine, spontaneous im- 

 pulse speaks through art, then they are still clearly voiced. As, 

 after centuries of effort and practice, classic architectm-e has 

 never become thoroughly at home in England, so the true 

 subjective Teutonic sensibility to all forms of Nature, and its 

 marked preference for awe-inspiring", irregular or picturesque 

 types of landscape, has never become part and parcel of the 

 Italian temperament. 



I have had to make a place for these general explanations in 

 order to show later on why the art of gardening developed as 

 it did in different countries. Of course the attitude of a com- 

 munity towards the beauty of natural scenes was not the only 

 cause which affected the development of this art ; but it was 

 one of the causes, and it should not be left out of sight if we 

 wish to understand how gardening, like all its sister arts, illus- 

 trates the fundamental characteristics of each nation that has 



practiced it. ,^ ^ rr 



New York. M. G. Vcijt Rensselaer. 



Notes Upon Some North American Trees. — V. 



Parkinsonia. — Mr. Watson finds (Proc. Am. Acad., xi., 

 135) that "the characters which have been rehed upon to 

 separate Cercidium of Tulasne from Parkinsonia do not 

 hold good in regard to our western species," and he 

 therefore unites, so far as concerns our North American 

 plants, these two genera. A re-examination of all the 

 available material in our eastern herbaria shows, how- 

 ever, that the valvate imbrication of the calyx-lobes is 

 constant in Cercidium and that the thickened glandular 

 claw of its upper petal does not appear in our species of 

 Parkinsonia. But the real distinction between the genera 

 lies in the fruit which in Parkinsonia is linear, rounded 

 and torose, while in Cercidium it is linear-oblong com- 

 pressed, and in one species slightly contracted between 

 the seeds. This difference in the fruit seems sufhcient to 

 keep the two genera apart, and I should therefore propose 

 to replace Parkinsonia Torreyana, Watson (/. c. ), and of the 

 Census Catalogue, by Cercidium Torreyanuvi ; and to in- 

 clude in the Silva the original North American species C. 

 floridum, Benth. , which, it is now known, becomes a tree 

 of considerable size in the valley of the lower Rio Grande, 

 especially south of the river, where I have seen it in great 

 numbers along the road between Monterey and Seralvo, 

 growing to a large size. The eastern and western species 

 are very closely related, and the two trees are hardly to be 

 distinguished as they are seen growing. Mr. Watson's 

 characters (/. c.) for the fruit of the western species — "pod 

 with a double groove along the broad, ventral suture, 

 usually two inches long or more, two to eight-seeded, 

 straight or somewhat contracted between the seeds ; seeds 

 very thick " — serve, however, to distinguish it from the 

 lower Rio Grande-valley plant, which has much smaller and 

 thinner pods, with a narrow acute margin on the ventral side, 

 and smaller and thinner seeds; but the fiowersof the Arizona 

 species are certainly axillary, and only accidentally terminal, 

 as described, an error due, perhaps, to the fact that the original 

 flowering specimen which served for the figure published in 

 the Pacific Railroad Reports (v., t. 3), and preserved in the 

 herbarium of Columbia College, is an unusually vigorous 

 shoot from a broken branch, with larger leaves than are usu- 

 ally produced, and terminated by a short raceme of flowers. 

 From this single shoot the branch which appears in the fig- 

 ure, with numerous terminal racemes, must have been made 

 up. The racemes in all the other specimens which I have 

 been able to examine are axillary, as they are in Cercidium 

 floridimi. Mr. C. G. Pringle, who has enjoyed excellent 

 opportunities for observing these trees where they grow, 

 sends me the following note, which serves to confirm Mr. 

 Watson's opinion that they are specifically distinct : " I 

 have given considerable attention to ParJmisonia Texana 



(the Cercidium floridum of Benlham), but did not arrive 

 at a clear opinion as to its relation to P. Torreyana, of 

 Arizona. The Rio Grande tree has a bright-green bark, 

 even to the trunk, while the other has a rough-barked 

 trunk in adult specimens, and the bark of the limbs is 

 olive-green or yellowish-green, a difference which may be 

 caused by differences of climate. The Texan, even on fer- 

 tile plains, appeared to be a much smaller tree, which 

 seemed surprising to me if both belong to one species. 

 The Arizona tree floWers profusely in April, and few 

 leaves put forth until after the mid-summer rains come. 

 I do not know the habit of the Texan tree ; last year it 

 must have flowered, though but scantily, throughout July 

 and August, and it must be in full leaf from April till Oc- 

 tober." I found it early in April, 1887, in full flower on 

 both banks of the Rio Grande. 



96. Leucena pulverulenta, Benth. — This, "the Mi- 

 mosa" of the American inhabitants of the lower Rio 

 Grande Valley, is a much larger and more beautiful tree than 

 the notes of early travelers in the region implied. I have 

 seen specimens growing wild on the banks of the Rio 

 Grande, ten or twelve miles below Brownsville, which 

 were fifty or sixty feet high, with straight trunks, covered 

 with cinnamon-brownpbark, at least twenty inches in diam- 

 eter ; and there were specimens in some of the gardens 

 of Matamoras which were nearly as large. This tree is 

 exceedingly ornamental in habit, in foliage, and in flower; 

 it grows with great rapidity, and it might be introduced 

 advantageously into all the Mediterranean countries and 

 into California as an ornamental tree. The wood which 

 it produces is valuable, too, being very hard, heavy and 

 close-grained, of a rich, dark-brown color ; the color of the 

 sap-wood being bright, clear yellow. The large specimens, 

 however, in its native country, are generally hollow or 

 defective, so that it is esteemed as an ornamental tree 

 only. The illustration upon page 389, which is made from 

 a photograph taken last summer by Mr. Pringle, repre- 

 sents a moderate-sized specimen, and shows the graceful 

 habit of the trees of this species. C S. Sargent. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



The Chinese Quince. 



M ANDRE joins some interesting notes to a beautiful 

 , colored plate of Cydonia Sinensis, published re- 

 cently in the Revue Horlicole. This plant, which must not 

 be confounded with the Japanese Quince met with so gen- 

 erally in gardens, is not often seen in cultivation, although 

 it may be expected to thrive in the middle and southern 

 states. 



Cydonia Sinensis is a small tree, with numerous upright, 

 slender branches,, oblong or obovate glandular-toothed stip- 

 ules, and oval, serrate leaves, pointed at the two extremi- 

 ties, the lower surface at first pubescent, but becoming 

 quite glabrous at maturity. The calyx-lobes are acumi- 

 nate-reflexed, and the petals are small, not more than half 

 an inch long, oval, pale pink, streaked with red. The fruit 

 is shaped like a barrel, five or six inches long. The diam- 

 eter of each of the two ends is somewhat greater than that 

 of the middle, and it is prominently depressed at the top and 

 bottom. The flesh is hard, granular and dry, creamy- 

 white or yellow. The skin, at first green, ripens to a beau- 

 tiful dark yellow, dotted with brown or nearly black spots. 

 The odor is peculiar, and intermediate between that of the 

 fruit of the common Quince and of Cydonia Japonica. M. 

 Andre notes that the figure in the Revue Horticole is the first 

 that has been published of this beautiful fruit, and that the 

 climate of Paris is not hot enough to thoroughly ripen it 

 without the aid of espalier cultivation. The Chinese 

 Quince flourishes, however, in the south of France, and its 

 fruits, sent from the neighborhood of Toulouse, are seen 

 sometimes in the markets of Paris, where, although not 

 very well known, they are esteemed for preserves. 



Cydonia Sinensis is widely distributed through western 



