494 



Garden and Forest. 



[October i6, 1889. 



AT a meeting of the committee appointed to select a 

 site for tlie Exposition to be lield in this city, it was 

 voted to take possession of as much of Central Park above 

 Ninety-third street as might be found necessary. Who 

 is to decide how much it will be necessary to confis- 

 cate, the committee did not divulge; but inasmuch as no 

 considerable amount of land has been secured elsewhere, 

 the action is a threat to vest some unknown body with 

 full power to destroy the best half of the park, at least. 

 It would be unjust to characterize this proposed defiance 

 of law and violation of pledges as audacious or impudent, 

 as some indignant critics have already done. It is simply 

 the outcome of ignorance. The majority of these worthy 

 gentlemen have not even an elementary knowledge of 

 what Central Park is, or what function it fulfills in the life 

 of the city. They offer to "improve" the park, as if an 

 appointment upon some committee by a mayor was all the 

 preparation needed for a work which demands as much 

 taste and skill as do the design and construction of a 

 cathedral, and they propose to obliterate the park, as a 

 park, for several years certainly, and perhaps forever, with- 

 out the glimmer of a suspicion that they are robbing the 

 people of rights which are plainly guaranteed to them and 

 their children. It remains to be seen whether the city pos- 

 sesses enough intelligence, firmness and civic virtue to 

 resist this dangerous attack upon its grandest public work. 

 We believe the scheme will be defeated. 



Color in Flowers. 



MR. G. H. ENGLEHEART, writing in The Garden, speaks 

 with excellent taste regarding the colors produced 

 in florists' flowers. "Could we appeal," he says, "to a 

 competent florist who was also as refined and sensitive a color- 

 ist as, say, Mr. Ruskin or Mr. Albert Moore, I have little doubt 

 but what he would maintain the principle that each flower or 

 race of flowers has its own legitimate and illegitimate, or 

 vicious, ranges of coloring, the former of which should be 

 encouraged to extend and unfold to the utmost, while the latter 

 should be absolutely suppressed. The florist's art may induce 

 false and bad colors in flowers, just as the chemist's art has dis- 

 covered and brought into ruinous use the horrible aniline dyes. 

 It is no excuse to urge that all colors which appear in flowers 

 are natural and may be retained. Nature (an ambiguous term 

 this) must often be led or restrained, rather than followed, and 

 there is often an ' Old Adam ' which must be cast out of 

 flower-kind as sternly as out of mankind. Thus in Primroses 

 the so-called blues, the purples, magentas and all slaty tones 

 are natural, but evil tendencies, and ought not to be tolerated. 

 What should be encouraged, delighted in, heightened to viv- 

 idness, or subdued to faint, soft tints, and in every way elab- 

 orated in this lovely flower, is the whole gamut of true 

 crimson, ruby, maroon, pink, orange and yellow. Sometimes 

 a flower appears which heralds the possibility of a true ver- 

 milion Primrose, and there is a cinnamon-brown and a cinna- 

 bar-chamois (to coin a word) which might in skillful hands 

 lead to a new and lovely set of colors." 



The many tints of white are, of course, also approved and 

 "a Primrose of a Nemophila blue might be an acquisition 

 (though, for my part, I do not feel certain that it would not be 

 astonishing rather than charming), but the links of leaden and 

 livid hues by which it is being reached after are ugly means, 

 to be used and destroyed — not beautiful ends to be exhibited. 

 Let me instance the herbaceous Phlox as a parallel. Here the 

 legitimate and admirable range of coloring is that of pinks, 

 roses, true lakes and crimsons, and especially certain glorious 

 salmon-reds containing possibilities of scarlet and orange, 

 besides the whites. No faintest suggestion of magenta should 

 be tolerated in the Phlox. But when I turn to the florists' 

 catalogues I observe that it is their endeavor and their pride to 

 torture this fine plant, or rather to help it to debase itself, into 

 sullen and impure purples — purple is a word grievously 

 abused by our florists — and that their joy culminates in the 

 production of a magenta with slate stripes. . . . But there may 

 be found, very near to the Primroses, a rightful province for 

 these colors. Turn to the Auriculas, and the true eye will see 

 that purples, plum colors, sapphires, amethysts, lavenders and 

 grays are not only permissible, but delightful and altogether 

 desirable there. This is no mere open question of taste, but a 

 matter of right and wrong, with, no doubt, demonstral;le sci- 

 entific reasons behind it, concerned perhaps with the greater 



refraction or absorption of light in Primroses and Auriculas 

 respectively. Some law might probably be established to the 

 effect that blue, and all colors into which blue largely enters, 

 can be pure and lovely only in such flowers as in texture or in 

 tubular construction possess a certain luminous quality or 

 transparence. Tlie Gentian is the typically beautiful blue 

 flower, and the Auricula has accomplished in its blossoms the 

 seemingly impossible combination of velvet and crystal, and 

 so fitted them for the reception of the bluest of rich purple 

 coloring. But Primroses do not possess this crystalline texture 

 or transparence to nearly so great an extent. An entire book 

 might be written upon color in flowers, and many interesting 

 laws traced, from a different standpoint to that from which the 

 subject has already been considered by some men of science." 

 The writer might have instanced hardy Rhododendrons and 

 green-house Azaleas as classes of plants where vicious colors, 

 especially impure purples and glaring magentas, are far too 

 commonly esteemed. If our I'eaders will study their collec- 

 dons of these plants when in bloom, with the same regard to 

 color that they would bestov/ in criticising a picture or choos- 

 ing a ribbon, they will find many which, in Matthew Arnold's 

 phrase, aptly quoted by Mr. Engleheart, should rouse "a sense 

 of lamentation, mourning and woe." 



Holiday Notes in Southern France and Northern Italy. 



T N this and the following papers I shall endeavor to pi-esent 

 ■'■ some of the more interesdng notes taken on a September 

 holiday-trip. Practically the holiday commenced at Aix-les- 

 Bains, for but few disconnected notes were taken by myself or 

 my companion before Aix was reached. Both of us garden- 

 ers, looking upon matters horticultural and arboricultural as 

 of the first importance to us, nearly the whole of the dme at 

 our disposal was spent in the open air as we journeyed from 

 Aix-les-Bains to Turin, thence to Venice, back to Milan, and 

 thence to the north Italian lakes. After seeing these we 

 made for Genoa and skirted the Mediterranean as far as Mar- 

 seilles, where the notes will close. 



Aix-les-Bains presented comparatively little of interest from 

 a gardening standpoint. The gardens of the Casino and of 

 the Villa des Fleurs — an establishment of a similar character 

 — were gay with gaudy beds, carpet and otherwise, and dis- 

 played the same taste, or lack of taste, which characterizes the 

 devotees of the bedding system everywhere. No remarkable 

 trees were noticed, except a fine Magnolia grandiflora and a 

 good Sequoia gigantea, close to one of the few relics of the 

 Roman period, the Arch of Campanus, a tomb of the third or 

 fourth century, built in the form of a triumphal arch. In the 

 little market place, what struck us most were the large quan- 

 tities of flowers of the beautiful, fragrant Cyclamen Europaum, 

 offered for sale by the peasant women ; the flowers were done 

 up in bunches of about a hundred and surrounded by a few 

 of their own leaves. Were only flowers offered for sale no 

 great harm would be done, but if roots are dug up, and de- 

 stroyed at the rate observed by us, much longer, this charm- 

 ing plant will soon become as much a thing of the past in the 

 neighborhood of Aix-les-Bains as is the Primrose — thanks to 

 the Primrose League — within considerable distances of Lon- 

 don. Some dealers had card-board boxes and address labels 

 all ready, so as to leave no excuse for weak-minded plant- 

 lovers not to buy their wares. According to advertisements 

 and placards in the shop windows, etc., the deliciously scented 

 flowers of the Cyclamen are used to perfume almost every 

 conceivable toilet requisite ; this, however — knowing some- 

 thing of what perfumery manufacturers are capable — we take 

 leave to doubt. 



The finest avenue tree here, and, indeed, in the whole of the 

 region through which we traveled, is the so-called London 

 Plane {Platanus acerifolia), misnamed in nearly every nurs- 

 ery and botanic garden of Europe P. occidentalis ; from the 

 American tree, however, P. acerifolia may be distinguished 

 at the first glance by its having numerous buttons in a string. 

 From Aix to the Lac du Bourget grateful shade is afforded by 

 a fine Plane avenue of considerable length. The lake is pict- 

 uresque and beautiful enough, and is largely visited by those 

 who repair to Aix. The season was too advanced for most 

 wild plants, the most noteworthy ones we collected in flower 

 being Campanula persicifolia, the Nettle-leaved Campanula, 

 C Tracheliu7n and Lonicera Caprifolium. A tall, perennial, 

 yellow-flowered Salvia {S. glutinosd), well worthy of a place 

 in the herbaceous border, was abundant in places along the 

 margins of the woods. Box {Buxus sempervirens) grew as 

 underwood on the steep, chalky slopes, and in the clearings 

 Buckwheat was one of the principal crops. 



About Chambery the Walnut is largely cultivated, and gives 



