412 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 28, 1889. 



lanceolate and narrowly acuminate but on vigorous shoots 

 often become broadly ovate and cordate. The number of 

 styles varies from two to five, but the fruit except in shape 

 and size, and in the number of seeds, which are strongly 

 ribbed on the back with two deep grooves, is very much 

 alike in all the forms of this species. 



The principal forms may be arranged as follows : 



1. Var. TYPICA, with rather small sharply serrate, or some- 

 what cut-lobed leaves, cuneate at the base and pubescent on 

 the lower surface especially on the mid-rib and primary veins ; 

 few-flowered, pubescent corymbs of small flowers (half an 

 inch across) with pubescent calyx, and round or sonietimes 

 pear-shaped fruit rarely more than half an inch in diameter. 



2. Var. POPULIFOLIA, with more slender spines, thin, glabrous, 

 sharply serrate, somewhat incised leaves, often truncate or 

 slightly cordate at the base, borne on slender petioles, and 

 small glabrous, or occasionally hairy three to five-flowered, 

 small, narrow corymbs. 



3. Var. MACRACANTHA, with very long, stout spines, thicker 

 leaves, cuneate at the base and tapering into a stout petiole, 

 sharply serrate, and incised above the middle, slightly pubescent 

 on the lower surface when young or quite glabrous or with a few 

 scattered hairs on the mid-rib and primary veins; broad many- 

 flowered, pubescent cymes, and rather larger flowers and fruit 

 than in number one. 



4. Var. MOLLIS, with densely pubescent shoots, large-broad 

 leaves, usually incisely cut into acute, narrow angulate lobes, 

 cuneate, truncate or heart-shaped at the base, often somewhat 

 scabrous on the upper surface, the lower more or less densely 

 covered with pubescence, broad pubescent cymes, with large 

 flowers (one inch across) and large spherical or pear-shaped, 

 sometimes punctate fruit covered with a white bloom. 



What I consider the typical form, that is the plant, 

 which, as shown by his herbarium, Linnaeus had before 

 him when he established the species (Species Plantarum, 

 476), is common, from Newfoundland to Florida, and ex- 

 tends west to Minnesota, Missouri and Texas. It is the 

 common Thorn in the valleys of the southern Alleghany 

 Mountains and is not rare in the Gulf States. The 

 leaves are sometimes quite glabrous. This is usually a 

 stout, tall, or even a small shrub with intricate branches, 

 or more rarely a small tree. 



Var. POPULIFOLIA, Torr & Gray, Fl. i., 465 {C. populifolia, 

 Ell. Sk., i., 553), appears to be confined to the south At- 

 lantic States, although forms intermediate between this and 

 No. I are found everywhere. It was described by Elliott 

 as a shrub with slender branches, but I have never seen it 

 growing ; and I am not acquainted with the fruit I have 

 flowering specimens collected by the late Dr. Ravenel at 

 Augusta, Georgia ; and Curtiss' C. coccmea, No. 807, col- 

 lected in Alachua County, Florida, belongs here. 



Var. MACRACANTHA, Dudley, "Cayuga Flora," '^'^{C. glajidu- 

 losa P Willd.), is widely distributed from the valley of the St. 

 Lawrence to Manitoba, Colorado, and the western slopes 

 of the Cascade Mountains in Washington. I have not 

 seen it anywhere south of New York and Missouri. It is 

 a small tree or shrub, with long, straggling branches, 

 thickly armed with sharp spines often four to five inches long, 

 and in the west, with thick almost coriaceous leaves. It is 

 confounded in the eastern States, especially in New Eng- 

 land, with C. tomentosa to which have been referred gen- 

 erally the red-fruited Thorns of the western Mountains, 

 which all belong here. 



Var. MOLLIS, Torrey & Gray, Fl. i , 465 (C. subvillosa, 

 Schrader), is found from eastern Massachusetts, through 

 western New York to Missouri and middle Tennessee, and 

 south-westward through Arkansas and Texas to the 

 Sierra Madre Mountains of northern Mexico. It seems to 

 be wanting from the South Atlantic and Gulf States east of 

 the Mississippi, and from the whole Alleghany region. 

 This is the largest of our northern Thorns, and one of the 

 largest of the genus, often reaching a height of thirty feet, 

 with a clean, straight trunk and a wide, round head. The 

 leaves vary greatly in the amount of their pubescence, 

 being at the east sometimes nearly glabrous, while the 

 amount and density increase in proportion as the climate 



of the region in which the individual has grown, is de- 

 prived of moisture. This variety flowers fully a week 

 earlier than the other forms of the species, and the fruit 

 which falls as soon as it is ripe is several weeks earlier. 

 The eastern, or less densely-pubescent form, is very well 

 figured in Emerson's "Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts " 

 2 ed , as C. iomeiitosa. Nos. i, 3 and 4 may be seen growing 

 together in the space of an acre, close to the north shore 

 of Massachusetts Bay, in the town of Revere, and their dif- 

 ferent habit and appearance, contrasted. At this place the 

 three forms are well marked and show no tendency to vary 

 among themselves. In Berkshire County, on the contrary, 

 where all three grow in great abundance, they have so 

 inter-bred that it is almost hopeless to try to separate them. 



C. S. Sargent. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Tigridia buccifera.* 



OF the discoveries made by Mr. Pringle last year in 

 the mountains of Mexico there has already been 

 figured in the Garden and Forest (Vol. I., Fig. 61) anew 

 species of Tigridia belonging to the typical T. pavonia 

 group. We now offer one of the Beatonia section, which 

 are distinguished by smaller and more or less purple in- 

 stead of orange flowers, and by minute terminal stigmas. 

 From Nemastylis, which the species greatly resemble in- 

 habit, they differ in the inequality and dissimilarity in 

 form of the outer and inner segments of the flower, and in 

 the position of the styles, which are here opposite to the 

 anthers, instead of alternate with them. 



In the present species the flower is nearly two inches 

 broad, with the saucer-shaped base, formed by the broad 

 concave bases of the segments, of a pale, greenish-yellow, 

 dotted uniformly with purple. The obovate blade of the 

 outer segments is a clear light purple. The shorter inner 

 segments are very peculiar in shape, being folded together 

 in such a manner as to form a sunken longitudinal tube 

 down the centre, the dilated sides at the outer end of the 

 tube approaching each other in the form of two cheek-like 

 prominences. These are colored white, purple and yellow, 

 while the small, rounded, terminal blade is a deep purple. 

 The anthers are erect and nearly sessile upon very short 

 united filaments, the cells of each anther separated by a 

 broad connective, as in some species of Ne7?tasiylis. The 

 styles are closely united nearly as high as the top of the 

 stamens, where the conical branches suddenly diverge, 

 and are exserted in pairs between the anthers. 



The flowers, as is frequently the case with plants of this 

 order, are quite fugacious, lasting at the longest only for a 

 single day. But while they last they are remarkably 

 pretty, and a succession from the several spathes of one or 

 two flowers each day is assured for several days. The 

 drawing is a A^ery faithful representation of a plant which 

 bloomed in Cambridge in July of this year from bulbs 

 collected by Mr. Pringle, in 1888, in the mountains of 

 Jalisco, Mexico, and received from Mr. F. H. Horsford of 

 Charlotte, Vermont. S. W. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



THERE were very few Orchids sent to the Committee of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society at its last meeting, and the only 

 one certificated was a lovely variety of the rare Sobralia xan- 

 tholeicca, which has been named Alba, although it is not 

 pure white. In the original the flowers are pale yellow with a 

 deeper colored lip, and sometimes flushed with lilac. In this 

 new variety the sepals and petals are very faintly tinted with 



♦Tigridia buccifera. — Stem a foot high, from a small bulb, branching, glau- 

 cous ; radical leaves nearly as tall, plicate, three lines broad, the cauline bracts 

 (three) more or less foliaceous ; spathes of two unequal bracts one and a half to 

 tw(^ inches long : perianth two inches broad, with purple-dotted, greenish-yellow 

 base, the blade of the outer segments obovate, purple ; inner segments (ubular- 

 foldcd in the centre, the dilated sides below the small, concave-rounded, deep- 

 purple blade approximate in two cheek-like prominences ; anthers nearly sessile, 

 with broad connectives ; styles as long, the conical branches widely divergent, ex- 

 uded between the anthers. 



