November 6, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



531 



steep slope of one of the spurs of the Shiinran Range. The 

 vegetation is divided between fruit trees, shade trees and llow- 

 ers, arranged to make an agreeaJjie siminier residence and a 

 profitable farm, the latter feature being so distributed as not 

 to be too prominent in a pleasure seat. 



The grounds are so steep and broken that a proper site for 

 the residence could be obtained only by terracing. This 

 added to the expense but also to the impressive beauty and 

 majesty of the design, which has everywhere been carried out 

 with an admirable combination of breadth and detail, and a 

 general harmony of effect, which produces an impression on 

 the memory more vivid and lasting than that of many fai' 

 more elaborate and costly places I have seen in Europe. 

 Herein is exhibited the consummate art of the Persian 

 designer. 



The shape of the estate is exceedingly irregular, roughly 

 representing a pear pinched at the smaller end, which is, at 

 the same time, the nearest the base of the hill. It is near this 

 end that the gardens and residence are placed. These might 

 have been more easily reached by having the main entrance 

 to the grounds just at a bend in the road before it descends 

 to follow the roaring brook that comes from the mountains 

 and dashes through a romantic ravine. But to have done this 

 would have been to sacrifice one of the finest effects of the 

 place. This feature of Jeferabad is one of the most effective 

 I have seen produced by the art of landscape-gardening. 



Descending into a little hollow, the steep winding road in- 

 closed on either hand with high walls, one comes imexpect- 

 edly to a lofty gateway on a widening of the street, the latter 

 intended to afford space for the groups of horses attending 

 the cavalcade of a Persian gendeman. Entering the gate, we 

 look up an avenue of lofty, trimmed Sycamores and Poplars, 

 forming on either hand a stately wall of green, through which 

 glimpses of fruit-trees are seen. This avenue turns a sudden 

 angle and continues up a gentle slope for a hundred yards, 

 leading, apparently, to nothing; so dense is the vegetation, one 

 can form no idea of the character of the place. 



Still wondering what he is coming to, the visitor reaches an- 

 other sharp angle in the avenue, and, without warning, faces 

 a flight of broad stone steps, flanked by a carved balustrade at 

 the end of the third stage of this impressive walk. At the head 

 of the steps is a vast terrace, and, framed as it were between 

 the walls of greenery beyond this terrace, appears a most 

 graceful pillared pavilion surmounting a second terrace, the 

 effect being not less beautiful than some of the restored tem- 

 ples of classic times, lifted toward the blue ether by gradual 

 elevations. 



It is not until one actually places foot on the pavement of 

 the first terrace that he has any conception of the delightful 

 surprise that awaits him. He beholds a platform one hundred 

 and twenty yards in length and forty in width, from whence he 

 gazes over the capital of Persia in the distance, an oasis of 

 green on the plains, quivering with mirage fading away to the 

 south. This view is seen through a break, permitted for this 

 purpose, in the wall of foliage that surrounds the terrace. 



The terrace is entirely paved, but yet we say this with re- 

 serve, as through the centre is a channel for a stream, and par- 

 terres abounding with flowers fill a large portion. The north- 

 ern end is raised a foot and contains a circular tank some fifty 

 feet in diameter. The east side of the terrace is protected by 

 the wall of the second terrace rising fifteen feet. This terrace 

 is of less width, and is, in turn, protected on the east side by 

 a dense grove of Poplars swaymg over it, like plumes in the 

 regular trade wind. 



The buildings are constructed on these two terraces in a 

 manner to combine effect with the peculiar domestic arrange- 

 ments of the country, and, at the same time, in a way that 

 could not be admitted in a less mild and even climate. Ex- 

 tending entirely across the northern end of the first terrace 

 are the apartments of the ladies, and these have a separate 

 court, invisible until one enters it. This is paved, and beautified 

 with roses grown in the form and almost the size of Lemon- 

 trees. In the centre of this court is a tank, where the water 

 plays at will ; and from this court one reaches a stately apart- 

 ment, serving as a common room where all can meet and 

 sleep, gossip, embroider or touch the guitar as they choose, 

 listening to the plashing of water from eveiy quarter. For the 

 water, led from the hill above, where it has fed the orchards, 

 passes into the tank of the small coiu't ; thence it passes under 

 the women's apartments to toss its spray again in a tank on 

 the southern front of those apartments ; thence it Inn-sts forth 

 again with a lofty jet in the large basin, then dashes along the 

 terrace to break down a mimic cascade, and then passes under 

 the dining-apartment at the southern extremity of this terrace, 

 dashingforth down to the brook with the chatter of a mill stream . 



In the meantime another branch of this stream is diverted 

 to the second terrace, where it feeds two other basins be- 

 tween the three pavilions, for the master's quarters, which, at 

 regular intervals, crown the centre and each end of that ter- . 

 race. Thus at will five jets can play at once in this part of the 

 grounds, in addition to two mimic cascades, and the roar of a 

 brook which courses through tlic orchards. In warni weather 

 the charm of this cooling music can be easily appreciated. 



The large grounds which rise in the rear of these artificial 

 works are densely covered with fruit and forest trees, judi- 

 ciously broken by delightful winding walks, and inter\'als 

 provided with seats. Here and there a terrace of rough ma- 

 sonry is bolstered against the hill-side, and a deep, rude tank, 

 overgrown with moss and turfed, offers, at the highest part, a 

 delicious S[:)Ot for a fete champetre, for which purpose it is often 

 employed. Altogether, this portion of the estate forms a ro- 

 mantic wild wood, slightly aided by art and taste. 



S. G. W. Benjamin. 



Viburnum lantanoides. 



IT is a singular fact that with the exception of the poor 

 figure in Audubon's " Birds " no portrait has been pub- 

 lished before of this slirub, which is by far the handsomest 

 of the Nortli American Viburnums, and one of the most 

 beautiful plants of our flora. The fact that it is impatient 

 of cultivation — for the Hobblebush, or Moosewood, as this 

 Viburnum is often called at the north, is the most difficult 

 of all our native shrubs to cultivate — probably accounts for 

 this lack of figures, as American plants have been figured 

 generally in European publications from specimens ob- 

 tained in European gardens. Viburniiin lantanoides was 

 not included in either edition of the " Horlus Kewensis, " 

 and it is doubtful if it has flowered in a garden very often 

 (a small plant flowered in the Arnold Arboretum this 

 year) or that many persons who are not familiar with our 

 woods in early spring have ever seen it in all its beauty. 



It is a tall, stout shrub, with naked winter buds, reaching 

 occasionally to a height of twelve or fifteen feet, with short 

 tortuous stems, rather bare of branchlets, and covered with 

 smooth, dark brown bark, that of the square or angled 

 shoots being red and marked during the second year by 

 numerous white dots. The leaves are confined to the ends 

 of the branches; they are round-ovate, abruptly acuminate, 

 sharply and doubly serrate, pinnately straight veined, the 

 prominent veins connected by conspicuous transverse vein- 

 lets ; six inches long when fully grown, by nearly as much 

 broad. They are densely scurfy-pubescent when they first 

 appear, as are the broad, stout petioles, the inflorescence, 

 buds and shoots of the year. The flowers are produced 

 in radial cymes, the marginal being neutral, with enlarged, 

 flat Hydrangea-like corollas, an inch or more across. The 

 inflorescence begins to unfold late in April or early in May, 

 the neutral flowers opening first. The leaves are then an 

 inch or an inch and a half long, and conspicuous from the 

 broad prominent veins covered with dense brown tomen- 

 tum. The flowers are fully open a month later, and the fruit 

 ripens in September. It is coral red as it reaches maturity, 

 turning dark crimson or purple when fully ripe, ovoid, 

 rather flattened, and half an inch long. The stone is flat- 

 tened, three-grooved on one face, deeply and broadly 

 grooved on the other. 



Vihurnum lantanoides is found in the forests of New Bruns- 

 wick and Canada, extending southward through the Appa- 

 lachian Mountains as far as the high peaks of North Caro- 

 lina and Tennessee, where it attains on the high western 

 slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains its greatest develop- 

 ment, and where specimens fully fifteen feet high of almost 

 arborescent habit are not uncommon. 



It approaches the coast at a few points in eastern [Massa- 

 chusetts, but its true home is far north, or on the high 

 mountains. The Hobblebush delights in rather moist soil 

 and in the deep shade of deciduous trees, where it often (juite 

 covers the ground, and enlivens in early spring the forests 

 of Sugar Maple, Beech and Birch of northern New England, 

 New York and of the shores of the Great Lakes, with its 

 showy white flowers, and again with the deep, rich claret 

 coloring of its unsurpassed autumn foliage. 



