592 



Garden and Forest. 



[December ii, iJ 



New or Little Known Plants. 



The Last Addition to the Shrubs of Eastern North 



America, 



( Croton Alabarnensis.) 



THIS plant, the rarest and most beautiful of theCrotons 

 found within the limits of the United States, was first 

 brought to the notice of botanists by Professor Eugene A. 

 Smith, who found it in the summer of 1877 near Pratt's 

 Ferry, Bibb County, Alabama, not far from the eastern 

 bank of the Little Cahaba River, the principal upper tribu- 

 tary of the Cahaba, where it forms dense and almost im- 

 penetrable thickets, many acres in extent, in the Oak forest 

 covering the base and flanks of the old-silurian limestone 

 hills which skirt the valley. The soil and the rocks, scat- 

 tered widely over this valley, are covered under the deep 

 shade of shrubs and trees with a cool, dark carpet of 

 mosses, studded with numerous Ferns, the sombre green 

 relieved in some exposed spots by the pale purple flowers of 

 the delicate Sedum Nevii,\hQ rare Gaiesia Iceie-virens and sev- 

 eral shade-loving Desmodiums. When I first visited this 

 locality in the fall of 1882, in a vain search for seeds of the 

 Alabama Croton, I was repaid by the discovery, among the 

 White and Chestnut Oaks overshadowing it, of the then little 

 known Quercus Diirandii, first observed in this state in 1840 

 by Mr. S. T. Buckley, who subsequently described it from 

 specimens gathered by him in Texas. The exact habitat of 

 this rare tree east of the Mississippi River had remained, 

 however, unknown up to the time of my rediscovery of it 

 in the valley of the Little Cahaba River. 



There are only at this time a few of these thickets of the 

 Alabama Croton, called by the inhabitants of the region 

 " Privet brakes," known, and these are all found close 

 together; and it is probable that it does not extend beyond 

 a territory a few miles square. 



Croton Alabamensis,* when fully grown, reaches a height 

 of six to ten feet, with upright, or slightly bent, stems one 

 and a half to two inches in diameter, covered with grayish 

 white bark. The rigid, widely spread branches are rather 

 naked, the foliage being confined to the terminal branch- 

 lets, which only appear at some distance from the ground. 

 The stem and branches of young plants, however, are cov- 

 ered with leaves and flower-bearing lateral branchlets, and 

 are then almost hidden with their dress of silvery white 

 and brilliant green foliage. The leaves are destitute of 

 glands and are subtended by small exceedingly deciduous 

 stipules ; they are oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, entire, deep 

 green on the upper surface, the lower covered with a dense 

 tomentum of shining silvery scales, as are the short peti- 

 oles, young shoots and the inflorescence. The leaves are 

 persistent, remaining on the branches through the winter, 

 and are then gradually replaced during the succeeding sea- 

 son by a new crop produced from early spring to the end 

 of autumn. The flower-buds begin to appear soon after 

 the ripening of the fruit in early summer ; they are placed 

 in axillary recemesfrom an inch to an inch and a half long 

 at the time they open, which is from early February to 

 the middle of March. The small whitish flowers are short 

 pediceled, with a calyx of five broad acute sepals, a little 

 longer than the five narrow petals, and alternating with the 

 oblong glands at their base. The deep yellow anthers of 

 the fifteen or twenty stamens, arranged in alternate sets of 

 five in the crowded male flowers, make the inflorescence 

 somewhat conspicuous. The female flowers, fewer in 

 number, occupy the lower part of the raceme, their hairy 

 ovary bearing three small, flat, somewhat emarginate 

 stigmas. The male flowers soon fall after pollination, 

 when all parts of the female flowers increase rapidly in 



* "C. Alabamensis, E. a. Smith (ined.). — Stem tall, woody, much branched; leaves 

 thin, short petioled, oblong-lanceolate, mostly obtuse, smooth or nearly so above, 

 tile lower surface, like the branchlets and racemes, coated with silvery scales ; 

 racemes often unisexual, few or many flowered; calyx-lobes five, acute; petals of 

 both sexes scarcely shorter than the calyx, woolly-marjjined ; stamens twenty or 

 more: styles simple, truncate or emarginate; capsule much longer than the calyx; 

 seeds glabrous. Central Alabama, flowering throughout the year. Stem, six to 

 ten degrees high. Leaves, tsvo to three inches long. " Chapman, Fl. S. States, 

 Suppl. 648. 



size, the racemes growing to more than double their 

 original length. The fruit ripens from the latter part of 

 April to the end of May ; the carpels, when fully mature, 

 separating by the slightest touch, splitting dorsally and 

 discharging their seeds with some force. This habit will 

 account for the difficulty I have experienced in procuring 

 a supply of seeds, for which I have made two fruitless 

 excursions. 



The Alabama Croton is not a rapid growing plant. Ac- 

 cording to Professor Smith's observations, seedlings of the 

 second season, and about eighteen inches high, trans- 

 planted from the forest in 1880, have now attained a height 

 of seven feet, having made a growth of about five feet and 

 a half, the largest stems having a diameter of one and a 

 half inches. These plants began to flower when they were 

 two feet high, and at that time were covered with numerous 

 lateral branches. During succeeding years the growth was 

 principally upright, and the plants at present have no 

 lateral branches on the lower part of the stem. No effort 

 has been made to propagate this plant by layers or by 

 cuttings. 



The original forest-growth, which still covers the limited 

 area upon which the Alabama Croton is found, is, in this 

 day of rapid development of the timber and mineral re- 

 sources stored up in this secluded part of the country, 

 liable to early destruction, and the survival of this typical 

 Alabama plant in its native home is, at best, uncertain, and 

 will, in all probability, be of short duration. It is only by 

 cultivation, therefore, that the continuation of this species 

 can be secured; and to this it is entitled, not only as a rare 

 production of the vegetable world, possessing many points 

 of scientific interest, but also for its value as an ornament 

 for the garden and the park. There is little doubt that its 

 cultivation, with slight protection during the winter in 

 higher latitudes, can be made successful, and that it 

 will thrive in the, Atlantic states as far north as New 

 England. 



Crolon Alabamensis belongs to the sub-genus Eluteria, 

 and its nearest relative in the United States is Croton argy- 

 ranthemum of the south Atlantic states, and, as Dr. Chapman 

 has pointed out to me, it is very closely related to an extra- 

 tropical species of southern Brazil, which differs from it 

 slightly in specific characters. 



Mobile, Ala. 



C. Mohr. 



Chr3'^santhemum, Mrs. Andrew Carnegie. 



T^HIS is a seedling raised from Duchess, with Cullingfordii 

 -*- as the pollen parent. Out of twenty-five seedlings from 

 this same cross, several had distinct crimson flowers, but were 

 not of sufficient merit to justify their distribution, while the 

 one in question I consider the best crimson variety of the type 

 known as Japanese. The Mrs. Carnegie requires particular 

 treatment to bring out the true shape and coloring of the 

 flower. It should never be forced into rapid growth, but 

 sliould be grown slowly from the start. The plant should be 

 exposed to the sun after the ist of September and should not 

 be removed to the green-house uiitil freezing weather threat- 

 ens, and after that it must not be subjected to more artificial 

 heat than is necessary to protect it from frost. A dry atmos- 

 phere, too, is of the greatest importance, as the least moisture 

 on the florets after they begin to unfold causes them to damp 

 or mould. John Thorpe. 



Pearl River, N. Y. 



Cultural Department. 

 The Shrub-Garden in November. 



'T^HE garden in November is not always destitute of interest- 

 J- ing or beautiful objects, as is commonly supposed, and, 

 under ordinary circumstances, there are many plants which 

 well repay examination at this season, when nearly all vegeta- 

 tion seems to have lost activity and life. In the latter part of 

 the month, or Thanksgiving week, in New England many a 

 pretty bouquet can often be made from the flowers and fruit 

 which may be found in the open garden or in sheltered 

 corners. 



It is at this time that the value of woody ornamental plants 



