544 



Garden and Forest. 



[November 13, i{ 



That brilliant autumn foliage is not common to all the 

 species of any genus or habitat is well shown among the 

 Spiraeas, in which the Asiatic species, S. Thinibergli and 6". 

 prunifolla, become orange and scarlet, and almost no other 

 species, not even our native ones, are of any autumnal value. 

 5. Thunbergii is especially attractive and beautiful at this 

 season. • 



The common Barberry {B. viclgaris) does not often develop 

 very rich colors of foliage, in this country at least, while nearly 

 ■ all the introduced Asiatic varieties and species are conspicu- 

 ous by their bright orange and scarlet, a Japanese species 

 {B. Sieboldi) leading them all in this respect. 



But no other Japanese plant can compare in autumnal value 

 with Ampelopsis iriciispidata (also called Ampelopsis Veitchii, 

 Vitls incoiistans, Japanese Ivy, Boston Ivy, etc.), and alto- 

 gether it should be considered one of the most valuable intro- 

 ductions from that country of beautiful plants. In its purples, 

 reds and crimsons and pale yellows, where the direct rays of 

 the sun do not strike, it rivals the beauty of the Virginian 

 Creeper {Ampelopsis quinquefolia), which, about Boston, loses 

 its bright crimson leaves before its Japanese relative has 

 attained its greatest glory. 



To give details of the changes of all the species of hardy 

 woody plants which possess any value for their autumnal 

 foliage would occupy many pages of Garden and Forest. 

 Nearly all the genera have some species which have a claim 

 to notice, and often nearly every species belonging to a genus 

 has its own time of changing and peculiarities of tints. Many 

 of the conifers, too, undergo distinct changes in color when 

 the frosts appear, and the leaves of some of the Larches and 

 of Pseiidolarix Kcempferi sometimes assume a pretty yellow 

 or orange hue before they fall. 



Arnold Aiboretum. J ■ G. Jack. 



The India Rubber Tree. 



THE "India Rubber" or "Rubber plant " is a famil- 

 iar and cherished object in many houses. There is 

 not, probably, a plant among those which, during the last 

 twenty-five years, have become really popular for the 

 embellishment of living rooms and conservatories, which 

 is better suited for the purpose ; and there are few persons 

 now who know anything about plants at all who are not 

 familiar with the straight stem and splendid great, dark 

 green, lustrous, leathery leaves of the " Rubber plant," 

 which seems able to resist, with impunity, darkness, 

 neglect and drought, and even an atmosphere vitiated by 

 the gases from burning coals. Plants more than ten or 

 twelve feet high are not very often found in our northern 

 cities, and few people, perhaps, who see one of the plants 

 flourishing year after year in the narrow quarters of an or- 

 dinary sized flower-pot realize that it belongs to a race of 

 veritable giants, or that the Ficus elastica, as our com- 

 mon " Rubber" plant is called by botanists, is, in its na- 

 tive countries, a marvel among trees. Some idea, per- 

 haps, of the manner of growth and of the size which this 

 plant attains in the tropics can be obtained from the illus- 

 tration upon page 547. It represents a tree of ordinary 

 size and only fifty years old in the Botanical Garden of 

 Peradenya, in Ceylon, one of an avenue of some length. 

 It is difficult to realize that the aerial roots, grown into 

 supplementary trunks, common . to many species of Fig 

 (for the Rubber plant is a Fig, and produces miniature figs 

 precisely similar in structure to the figs of commerce), and 

 the great roots twisting like huge serpents in all directions 

 over the surface of the ground, belong to the little pot- 

 plant we are familiar with. 



Ficus elastica is a native of the foot-hills of the Sikkim 

 Himalaya of Assam, of Burmah, Perak and of the islands 

 of the Malayan Archipelago. It is a large tree, towering 

 high above the forest, with a broad, leafy crown and im- 

 mense trunk. Griffith describes, in i\\e Journal of the Asia- 

 tic Society (vii. i., 132), a tree one hundred feet high, cov- 

 ering with its branches an area of 610 feet, the main trunk 

 seventy-four feet in girth, while the trunk with its supple- 

 mentary stems was 1 20 feet in circumference. This spe- 

 cies of Fig, like many others found in the tropics, is an 

 epiphyte — that is, the seed from which it springs germi- 

 nates upon the trunk or branch of another tree. The 

 young plant sends down roots to the ground, and as 



these grow they gradually smother the host-plant, and 

 form an upright stem which in time becomes the support 

 of the Fig-tree. The fruit of this species, which is prob- 

 ably never seen outside of the tropics, is ovoid, about the 

 size of an olive, and greenish yellow in color. 



Ficus elastica is a favorite ornamental tree throughout 

 the tropics, and is largely used in the East Indies for shad- 

 ing avenues, for which purpose its wide-spreading head 

 admirably fits it. It is cultivated in Assam, where large 

 plantations of this tree have been made in recent years, 

 for the caoutchouc, which it yields in large quantities, 

 although it is now generally believed that Para rubber, the 

 product of several species of Hevea, especially of H. Bra- 

 ziliensis, a large evergreen tree found on the banks of the 

 Orinoco, retains its firmness longer and possesses greater 

 strength and elasticity. 



Ficus elastica was cultivated in England as early as 

 181 5, and whoever first thought of using it for house deco- 

 ration made a happy hit. It was probably first used in 

 this way, to any great extent at least, in Berlin. 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Staphylea Bolanderi. 



THE number of genera of woody plants with represen- 

 tatives in each of the great botanical regions of the 

 North Temperate Zone, the coniferous and the ament bear- 

 ing genera excepted, is not large. The discovery a few years 

 ago in northern California of the Staphylea, which is figured 

 upon page 545 of this issue, added this genus to the num- 

 ber. The flora of eastern North America contains, .5'. tri- 

 folia ; S. pinnata inhabits central Europe ; ^. Colchica, 

 which is by far the handsomest of the genus, is found in 

 the Orient ; .S". Emodi in the Himalayas, and »S. Bumalda 

 in Japan. 



Staphylea Bolanderi'^ was discovered by the excellent 

 collector whose name it bears on McCloud's Fork of the 

 Sacramento River, in the neighborhood of Mt. Shasta, in 

 April, 1874; and afterwards it was found again in the same 

 region by Mr. J. G. Lemmon in fruit. It is a shrub with stout 

 branches, covered with reddish brown bark, that of the 

 year pale green or straw colored. The leaves are three-fol- 

 iolate, with broadly oval or orbiculate, glabrous, serrulate, 

 abruptly acuminate leaflets. The flowers are greenish 

 white, with exserted stamens and style, the sepals rather 

 shorter than the petals. The fruit, which is rather nar- 

 row for the length, is two and a half inches long, with 

 slightly flattened seeds one-fourth of an inch long. 



Sfapliylea Bolanderi is apparently one of the rarest 

 shrubs of the Pacific forests, and has not been introduced 

 into cultivation. C. S. S. 



Plant Notes. 



The Cloudberry. {Rubus Chamamorus.) 



'T^HE Cloudberry, which is found in few localities south of 

 -'■ the Canadian boundary, and even then not in great 

 abundance, is quite common and greatly prized in Newfound- 

 land, Labi^ador, Nova Scotia and northern Quebec. It is 

 known under various names, and is very abundant through 

 northern Canada, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 

 and north to the Arctic Sea. Gi'owing always in peat bogs at 

 the south, and further north in open boggy places in woods, 

 it is found in the greatest profusion on the barrens beyond 

 the northern limit of tree growth, occasionally ripening its 

 fruit even within the Arctic Circle. In spite of the fact that it 

 is very susceptible to frost, and that frequently the fruit does 

 not mature at all, it seems to improve in quality, like a few 

 other berries, toward the northern limits of its distribution. 



Rubus arcticus and R. ChaiiKemorus are frequently found 

 together ; the broad, rose colored flowers of the one contrast- 

 ing beautifully with the lafge, white Anemone blossoms of 

 the other. The Cloudberry resembles none of its congeners 

 in color or in flavor. The rich amber or golden berries are 

 only slightly tinged with deep red on the side toward the sun ; 



* staphylea Bolanderi, Gray in Proc.^m. Acad., x. 69. — Brewer & Watson, But. 

 California, i. 108. ^ 



