472 



Garden and Forest. 



[October 2, 1889. 



a variety eleganlula from the southern part of the state. 

 I have not seen specimens of these trees, and have no 

 knowledg-c of them beyond that derived from Mr. Greene's 

 descriptions. C. S. Sargent. 



Abies Fraseri. 



AN interesting- feature of the forest-flora of North 

 America is the multiplication of species of Fir (Abies). 

 The American forest, if we include IMexico with its 

 single Fir-tree and consider Abies concolor as truly 

 distinct from the Fir of the north-west coast(/li^/es grandis'), 

 contains ten species of these trees ; while in the rest of 

 the world there are known only eleven species, even allow- 

 ing that some doubtful ones like A. Cephalojiica and A. 

 Appolinis of the Orient are really specifically disiinct from 

 the widely-distributed A. pectinaia of Europe — a view which 

 has not been held by the most competent observers of these 

 trees. Europe, in addition to A. peciinaia, possesses a sec- 

 ond species {A. Pinsapo), confined to the Spanish Sierras, 

 and to some of the high mountain-ranges of north- 

 western Africa. In the Asia Minor and Caucasian region 

 there is a group of four closely allied species or va- 

 rieties, including the two we have already mentioned and 

 A. Nordinanniana and A. Cilicica. The forests of the 

 Himalayas contain one species with two rather distinct 

 forms, while another Asiatic species (A. Sibiricd) is widely 

 distributed through the more northern parts of the Conti- 

 nent. In Japan three species are known. The true home 

 of the genus, therefore, if the multiplication of forms in- 

 dicates that a genus is more suited to flourish in a partic- 

 ular region than in another, is western North America, 

 where Firs are found upon all the mountain ranges from 

 the Arctic Circle to the high peaks of central Mexico. 



Two species occur also in eastern America, Abies bal- 

 samea, very widely distributed over all the boreal parts of 

 the continent and extending far north from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific, the only Fir in the Northern States, and A. 

 Fraseri, found only upon a few of the highest slopes of the 

 Alleghany Mountains of Carolina and Tennessee, so that, 

 next to the Californian A. bracteaia, it is by far the most 

 restricted in its distribution of the American species, which 

 usually range over wide areas. 



Our illustration upon page 475 shows a characteristic 

 forest of this tree as it appears on the Carolina mountains 

 at an elevation above the sea-level of about 5,000 feet. 

 This particular forest covers the high slopes of the Black 

 Mountain range, a lateral spur from the Blue Ridge near 

 Asheville in North Carolina. The highest point of the 

 range and the highest land in North America east of the 

 Rocky Mountains, Mount Mitchell, appears in the distance. 



Abies Fraseri \'& a small, short-lived tree, rarely growing 

 to a height of more than seventy feet, with a trunk in full- 

 grown individuals sometimes two and a half feet in diam- 

 eter, with bright cinnamon-red bark, becoming gray as the 

 trees begin to reach maturity. 



It is not easy to distinguish at a glance, and without the 

 cones, this species from the northern Balsam. The two 

 trees resemble each other in foliage and in habit, and the 

 appearance of the bark in old specimens is very much the 

 same. The structure of the leaves, however, as Dr. Engel- 

 mann has pointed out, offers characters which serve to 

 separate the two species, those of A. balsamea being al- 

 most destitute of the hypoderm cells which appear on the 

 upper side of the leaf of A. Fraseri in an almost continuous 

 layer. The two species, however, are at once distinguished 

 by the cones. Those of A. Fraseri are shorter and more 

 oval in outline, 'with largely exserted and reflexed bracts, 

 while the bracts of the mature cones of A. balsa?7iea are 

 included in the scales, or rarely with their points only pro- 

 truding. The white bands, composed of stomata on each 

 side and parallel with the mid-rib, found in the lower sur- 

 face of the leaves of all Firs, are much broader (with eight 

 to twelve rows) in the case of A. Fraseri than in that of 

 A. balsamea (usually with six rows) — a character which 



may be relied upon generally to distinguish sterile plants 

 of the two species. 



Abies Fraseri was, first made known by the Scotch botan- 

 ist and traveler whose name it bears, John Fraser, who 

 made several journeys to North America between 1780 

 and 1 8 10 for the purpose of collecting seeds and plants for 

 London nurserymen. Although Michaux, with whom he 

 traveled in Georgia for a short time in 1782, refers to him 

 several times with great contempt as "un certain Mr. 

 Fraser," no one man has contributed more valuable plants 

 to English gardens ; and in the list of his introductions, 

 which is published in the Companion to the Bota?iical Maga- 

 zine, ii., 300, appear the names of some of the best garden 

 plants found in North America, among them Rhododendron 

 Catawbiense, parent of all the race of the hardy Rhodo- 

 dendrons of modern days. Michaux must have con- 

 founded the Fir of the southern mountains with the north- 

 ern species, and it does not seem to have been introduced 

 into European gardens until 181 1. It is very well figured 

 in the ^' Pinetum Woburnense," published in 1839, from a 

 specimen then sixteen years old in the Duke of Bedford's 

 collection ; but it is very doubtful if there are now any old 

 plants anywhere in cultivation. This tree is short-lived, 

 and the plants of Eraser's introducing must have passed 

 away long ago, while of late years seeds of A. balsamea, 

 collected in Pennsylvania or in Canada, where specimens are 

 occasionally met with, in which the tips of the cone-bracts 

 are slightly exserted, have been very generally sold as A. 

 Fraseri ; and it is only within the last dozen years that the 

 Arnold Arboretum has been able to distribute a supply of 

 seedlings of the Carolina tree among the lovers of conifers 

 in the UnitedStates and in Europe. 



Abies Fraseri h^iS, little to recommend it as an ornamen- 

 tal plant ; and, economically, few American trees possess 

 so little value. It is perfectly hardy, however, in Massa- 

 chusetts, and some of the plants in the Arboretum, although 

 scarcely six feet high, have already produced cones. 



c. s. s. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Aster Herveyi. 



THIS very rare plant, of which a figure is now first 

 published upon page 413 was discovered a few years 

 ago by Mr. E. W. Hervey oh the borders of an Oak wood 

 near New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was found subse- 

 quently by Professor Sargent in Tiverton, Rhode Island, 

 growing on the gravel fill of a new road ; and again within 

 a few years by Mr. C. E. Faxon, in Muddy Pond woods, 

 and near Blue Hill, in Norfolk County, Massachusetts. 



Aster Herveyi* is a slender, low plant, growing to a 

 height of one or two feet, with numerous loosely corym- 

 bose heads, with hlac or violet rays half an inch long. 

 Like nearly all the North American Asters, it takes kindly 

 to cultivation, and makes an excellent autumn-blooming 

 border plant. The Biotia commixta (D. C, "Prodromus," 

 V. 265), an old inhabitant of gardens of unknown origin, is, 

 according to Professor Gray, a robust cultivated form of 

 this plant. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



T WROTE last week of the splendor of our open-air gardens 

 -•■ since the outburst of warm sun after the long period of 

 rain. Not less remarkable, just now, is the indoor garden 

 also, which, after its usual dull season at the height of sum- 

 mer, has begun to assume its wonted gay aspect in autumn, 

 and during the past week I have" had the opportunity to see 

 some iine examples of glass-house gardening. At the present 

 moment the plant of plants undoubtedly is that lovely Chilian 

 climber, the Lapageria, which is to be found now in almost 

 every green-house throughout the land. In one place I saw a 

 plant covering the entire roof of the green-house, and the 



* Aster Herveyi, Gray, Manual Bot., Northern U.S., 5th ed., 229; syn. Flora, i., 2, 175. 



