December 4, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



579 



Bordighiera, a few miles from the French frontier, is spe- 

 cially famous for its Palm groves, and presents an exceedingly 

 picturesque aspect. According to Dean Alford, there are 

 more Palms here than in the whole of the Holy Land. A con- 

 siderable trade in Palm leaves is done in Bordighiera ; in 

 fact, that town may be said to possess the monopoly of sup- 

 plying blanched Palm leaves for church purposes. The 

 young growths are tied up tightly in order to make them 

 the requisite color, and plants so treated are anything but or- 

 namental in appearance. Fortunately, however, a compara- 

 tively small proportion of the Bordighiera Palms are under- 

 going such treatment at one time. Tlie Date Palm is said to 

 have been introduced to this coast more than a thousand 

 years ago, and in the garden (of the French Consul at Bordi- 

 ghiera) which now occupies the site of a Dominican monas- 

 tery, there are huge trees which are believed by their present 

 possessors to have been planted by the Dominicans upward 

 of ten centuries ago. All along this district, too, the Olive is 

 seen in its full beauty — and a tine Olive tree is a really beauti- 

 ful sight. It is not pollarded, as in southern France toward 

 Marseilles, and in Languedoc, but allowed to attain tree size 

 and grow in a perfectly natural way. George Nicholsoji. 



Pinus Banksiana on the Maine Coast. 

 T T has been known for some years to a few botanists and 

 -*■ others that the northern Gray or Scrub Pine {Pinus Banksi- 

 ana) grew abundantly on the coast of Maine much farther 

 south than had ever been supposed, but until recently no 

 statement of the fact has ever been published. Those who 

 are curious to know how the discovery occurred will now find 

 in the November number of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botani- 

 cal Club (vol. xvi., No. 11) sonie notes relating to the fact 

 written by Mr. John H. Redfield and myself. 



Tfie station is on Schoodic Peninsula, in the town of Goulds- 

 boro, Maine, lying opposite the eastern shores of Mount 

 Desert Island across the expanse of Frenchman's Bay, and is 

 well marked by the bare, flat-topped mass of Schoodic Moun- 

 tain, 417 feet in height. Apart from this elevation the surface 

 of the peninsula is for the most part level, and often boggy, 

 overgrown by an uninteresting growth of low deciduous trees 

 and the common conifers of th* coast, with here and there, 

 especially on the mountain slopes, great Alder patches. 

 Throughout this region, from within sound of the sea to the 

 interior of the peninsula, and stretching at intervals miles be- 

 yond its limits to the northward, grows Pimis Banksiana in its 

 most southern home now on record, the latitude being about 

 forty-four degrees twenty minutes. In the lowlands this Pine 

 here attains a height of twenty to thirty feet, forming a slen- 

 der, graceful tree, well distinguished from the Spruces, in spite 

 of its short leaves, by its less conical form, by the bunching of 

 its leaves toward the extremity of the twigs in the manner of 

 Pines generally, and by its pecidiar cones curved at the tip. 

 On the east it forms almost a forest, nearly displacing the 

 usual conifers of the Maine coast. Toward the west, however, 

 the growth Ijecomes thin^although this may be due to a free 

 use of the axe — and decreases until only scattered trees appear 

 here and there. On the mountain-top it again appears, but in 

 a much changed form. There it is a true Scrub Pine, dwarfed, 

 weather-beaten, twisted into many a strange shape, along the 

 bare, exposed and wind-swept summit. On the peninsula it 

 certainly is the prevailing PinC/ almost to the exclusion of the 

 other species. Beyond here its extent northward and inland 

 is not well known. As Mr. Redfield remarks, it would be 

 interesting to know what degree of continuity there may be 

 between this station and the larger areas in northern Maine. 



The presence of this interesting Pine on the Maine coast 

 appears to have a certain appropriateness. Despised as it may 

 be elsewhere in comparison with the beauty and value of the 

 other Pines, here its whole character is in keeping with the 

 rugged, storm-swept sin-roundings. As a tree for clilf or shore 

 planting on this rocky coast I am convinced it would have 

 great worth, for it appears able to adapt itself to the most ex- 

 posed situations. To me, I confess, it has as a tree a peculiar 

 l)eauty of its own, and even as a dwarfed shrub it appears to 

 greater advantage than the other conifers of the coast. 

 Boston. Edward L. Rand. 



In a lawn of small dimensions the losing of the turf under 

 the shrubs is of the utmost importance, as it gives an appear- 

 ance of extent to its limited proportion. To help this, Peri- 

 winkle, St. John's-Wort and other ground creepers may 

 be planted with the shrubs, and by uniting them with the 

 lawn will tend to diminish the hard line of the border, a thing 

 that cannot be too strongly insisted on, as essential to cotitinuity 

 and repose. — W. S. Gilpin's " Practical Hints," 1832. 



The Kauri Pine. 



/^UR illustration upon page 583 represents a fine specimen 

 ^^ of tiie Kauri Pine of New Zealand, one of the giants of 

 the vegetable kingdom, and, economically, a tree of very great 

 value. 



It belongs to the small genus Agathis (Dammara of many 

 authors, who have adopted for these trees the name applied 

 byRhumphius indiscriminately to several resin-bearing trees 

 of different families), closely related to Araucaria and Cunning- 

 hamia, and characterized by dioecious flowers; the male in 

 short, cylindrical, extra-axillary heads, with numerous stamens 

 with short, eight to fifteen celled anthers; the females 

 terminal, maturing at the end of the second year into 

 short, cylindrical cones, with thick, coriaceous, densely imbri- 

 cated scales ; and by sub-opposite, ovate-oblong or lanceolate 

 thick, leathery leaves, one to three inches long, and an inch 

 or more wide. 



Eight or ten species of Agathis have been described, but 

 it is not impossible that the number can be considerably re- 

 duced when they are better known ; they are found in the 

 Malay Archipelago, in the Fiji Islands, New Caledonia, New 

 Zealand and east tropical Australia. The best known of the 

 species is the Kauri Pine {A. australis), a native of New Zea- 

 land, where, in the Auckland district of the northern island, in 

 sheltered mountain valleys, it often forms extensive forests, 

 reaching a height of 150 feet, with a trunk sometimes fifteen 

 feet in diameter. The wood of this tree is probably not sur- 

 passed in value by that of any other coniferous tree. It is 

 pale straw-colored, moderately hard, straight-grained, sound 

 and remarkably durable. It works easily with a beautiful silky 

 lustre and takes a fine polish. It is an admirable cabinet-wood, 

 and is largely used in New Zealand for railroad-ties and piling ; 

 for all sorts of building purposes and for cooperage, and is 

 now somewhat exported into Great Britain. 



The Kauri Pine produces also one of the most valuable 

 gum-resins known, now largely used in making varnish. 

 This resin is exported annually from New Zealand to the 

 value of nearly two million dollars. It is not obtained, how- 

 ever, in great quantity from the living trees, but is dug out 

 of the ground from the sites of old forests, where none of 

 these trees have been known to exist since the earliest dis- 

 covery of the island. This semi-fossil resin, however, which 

 is far softer than amber, does not greatly differ from that 

 which exudes from the living trees, which are productive only 

 when they have passed their prime and are becoming de- 

 crepit. 



It is not improbable that the Kauri Pine, and possibly some 

 of the other species of Agathis, may thrive in different parts 

 of California, although it is doubtful, perhaps, if any of the 

 conifers of the southern hemisphere will ever attain anywhere 

 north of the equator the age and size which they reach in 

 their native countries, or produce as valuable material. They 

 are, nevertheless, well worth trying in southern California, 

 and it may well be one of the aims of the managers of the 

 new Arboretum which is soon to be planted in connection 

 with Mr. Stanford's University, to collect there all the most 

 valuable timber trees of the south temperate zone. They can 

 be grown in no other part of the United States, and among 

 them, as we know already in the case of various species of 

 Eucalyptus, are many trees apparently fairly well suited to 

 the climate of California and of Mexico.' 



The Art of Gardening. An Historical Sketch. 



XIV. — Suburban Rome. 



/^HATEAUBRIAND aptly compares the present aspect of the 

 ^--^ Roman Campagna to the desolation of Tyre and Babvlon, 

 "a silence and a solitude as vast as the noise and tumiilt of 

 the men who formerly occupied the same soil." Scarcely a 

 tree is visible, and the only product seems to be the " ruins 

 which appear like a forest of indigenous plants, the growth of 

 a soil composed of the skeletons of the dead." A.s'it looked 

 to-day, so — except for its crop of ruins — the Campagna looked 

 in the early days of Rome, and its climate was as" malarious 

 then as now. But, in the imperial time, drainage and cultiva- 

 tion, an enormous supply of water brought from distant hills, 

 and the making of multitudinous well-built roads, had re- 

 deemed it from barrenness and disease and had turned it into 

 one vast garden. For miles around Rome lay the villas of its 

 wealthy citizens, the richest patrician families owning not one 

 but several, " planned and arranged on a different principle 

 in accordance with their destination as winter, spring or 



