December i8, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



611 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest: 



Sir. — During a recent visit to the Island of Santa Cruz, one of 

 the islands forming- the southerly wall of the Santa Barbara 

 Channel, on the coast of Californui, I found Polypodiuin Scoii- 

 leri, H. is' G., growing on the basaltic rocks of which the 

 island is largely composed. 



This Fern, so far as I know, has not been heretofore noted 

 from any locality within a distance of perhaps 200 miles north, 

 and not at all from the south, e.xcept by Dr. Palmer, who 

 reported it from Guadeloupe Island, olT the coast of Mexico. 



Santa Barbara, Cal. LorenZO G. Yates. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir. — Allow me to call your attention to the desirability of 

 Baccharis halinifolia for cultivation as an autumn-blooming 

 plant in shrubberies. It occurs somewhat abundantly on Buz- 

 zard's Bay, along the west shore of the Town of Dartmouth, 

 and the fertile plants are very attractive in Sejitember. I do 

 not remember to have ever noticed this shrul) in cultis'ation, 

 although we have few more attractive ones in its season. 

 From its habit it woidd appear better if planted among, other 

 shrubs than strictly alone. Although a plant of the lands ad- 

 joining tlie sea, yet I have seen occasional specimens along 

 the roadsides several miles inland. 



South Framingliam, Mass. E. Leivis Stlirtevaut. 



Periodical Literature. 



In a recent niimber of the Cortihill Magazine is an article on 

 "Weeds" so amusingly written that it is a delight to receive 

 the information it imparts. " As dirt," says the author, " is 

 matter in the wrong place, so, I take it, a weed is simply an 

 herb or flower which grows where the agriculturist does not 

 want it." Humble ugliness does not make a weed, nor does 

 lieauty prevent the name from being deserved. An instance 

 in point is cited : the blue Ageratum, which is a cherished 

 border flower in England, but which, transported to Ceylon by 

 an English lady, has there become, in truth, a weed, so rapidly 

 running wild in the island that it now costs over a million and 

 a quarter dollars annually to keep it down in the Coffee planta- 

 tions. Again, Clover " is a ' crop ' where it is deliberately sown; 

 but when it comes up lawlessly of its own mere motion in a 

 flower-bed on the lawn," then it is a weed. " Hence, it also 

 results that a weed, wherever it shows its weedy nature, be- 

 longs to what Darwin used to call ' a dominant species' — that 

 is to say, one that then and there can take care of itself and 

 live down or kill out all feebler constitutions. It is this viva- 

 cious peculiarity that constitutes the original sin of all weeds ; 

 they are plants that you don't want to grow, but that, never- 

 theless, possess qualities and attributes which enable them to 

 oust and overshadow those that you do. . . . Therefore, cul- 

 tivation . . . consists essentially in the suppression of weeds, 

 or, in other words, the restriction of free and natural com'peti- 

 tion." But, as the author goes on to explain, this refers merely 

 to competition in "free, open situations." A forest or wood- 

 land herb is not a weed, because it does not compete with our 

 crops or garden plantations. Such plants may be " weeds at 

 heart " — that is, pushing monopolists — but they are not weeds 

 in fact. " Man tills only the plain ; and, therefore, it is only the 

 wild herbs which naturally grow in the full eye of day that can 

 compete at an advantage with his Corn, his Ttu-nips, his Beet- 

 root or his Sugar-cane. Hence arises a curious and very inter- 

 esting fact, that the greater part of the common weeds of west- 

 ern Europe and America are neither west European nor Ameri- 

 can at all, but Asiatic, or, at least, Mediterranean in type or 

 origin. . . . The reason is obvious. Western Europe and 

 eastern America, in their native condition, were forest-clad 

 regions. . . . Now, the wild flowers and plants that grow be- 

 neath the shades of the forest primeval won't bear the open 

 heat of the noonday sun. The consequence is, that whenever 

 the forest primeval is cleared, a new vegetation usurps the 

 soil, a vegetation which necessarily comes from elsewhere." 

 Any one who has even glanced through Gray's " Manual " 

 knows how true this is of our eastern states ; but it is a less 

 familiar fact that, in recent years, certain American plants are 

 rimning wild as weeds in Europe. "A return wave," as oiu^ 

 author expresses it, " from west to east is actually in pi-ogress; 

 and . . . promises in the end to assume gigantic proportions. 

 Many years ago the great Boston botanist, Asa Gray, projihe- 

 sied its advent, and his prophecy has since gone on fulfilling 

 itself at the usual rapid rate of all American phenomena, social 

 or natural." This new class of emigrants, be it noted, come 

 chiefly from the far west — from those parts of oiu- continent 

 which have always been a vast stretch of treeless prairie land, 



clothed with plants habituated to the open sky. From the 

 western they have begun to pass to the eastern states, and 

 thence across the Atlantic. Our author believes that tiiey will 

 soon, " in virtue of their sturdier and stringier prairie consti- 

 tution, habituated to long drought or broiling sunshine, live 

 down those damp-lovingand dainty cis-Atlantic weeds " which 

 now occupy the soil of eastern America, and, once on the other 

 side of the ocean, " will, in many cases, almost entirely swamp 

 our native vegetation. In fact, I think there can be little doubt 

 that, with the increase of intercourse all over the world, a few 

 hardy cosmopolitan weeds must tend in the long run to divide 

 the empire of life and map out the cultivable plains of the 

 globe between them. ... I don't doubt that in time these 

 picked weeds of all the open lowland regions, but more espe- 

 cially of the pampas, the steppes and the veldt, will overrun 

 the greater part of the habitable globe. They are the Attest 

 for their own particular purpose, and fitness is all that nature 

 cares about. We sliall thus lose a great deal in picturesque 

 variety between country and coiuitry. . . . Toujour s perdrix is 

 bad enough, but toiijours lait-d'ane — always Sow-thistle — is 

 surely something too horrible to contemplate." 



Three American weeds are then cited as having already 

 made good their hold in England. " One of them, the latest 

 comer, a harmless little Claytonia from the north-western 

 states, is spreading visil;ly every year under my own eyes in 

 my own part of Surrey. Thirty years ago Mr. Brewer, of Rei- 

 gate, noted with interest in his garden at that town the appear- 

 ance of a small exotic Veronica ; the 'interesting' little plant 

 is now by far a commoner pest in all the fields of southern 

 England than almost any of our native Knot-weeds, Thistles 

 or Charlocks. The Peruvian Galinsoga . . . has spread im- 

 mensely in Italy and the Riviera and now grows quite com- 

 monly wild on the road-sides about Kew, whence it will sweep 

 in time with devouring effect upon the surroundmg coun- 

 tries." Of course, man can almost always succeed in the fight 

 against weeds, "but his commercial and agricultural success 

 will be but a small consolation, after all, to the lover of nature 

 for that general vulgarization and equalization of the world's 

 flora, which universal culture and increased intercourse must 

 almost of necessity bring in their train to every quarter of the 

 habitable globe." 



It is interesting also to note that many plants which spread 

 with a new rapidity in a new soil likewise develop as individu- 

 als m an unprecedented way. For example, the " petty En- 

 glish Knot-grass, which at home is bujt an insignificant road- 

 side trailer, thrives in the imencumbered soil of New Zealand 

 so hugely that single weeds sometimes cover a space five 

 feet in diameter and send their roots four feet deep into 

 the rich ground." And the Water-cress of our breakfast- 

 tables, "in Europe a mere casual brook-side plant, chokes the 

 New Zealand rivers with stems twelve feet long, and costs the 

 colonists of Christ Church alone ,^300 a year in dredging their 

 Avon free from it." As a proof that the battle is not always 

 to the seemingly strong, we may quote the instance of the 

 White Clover, which " has completely strangled its immense 

 antagonist, the New Zealand Flax, a huge Iris-like Aloe, with 

 leaves as tall as a British grenadier and fibres powerful enough 

 to make cords and ropes fit to hang a sheep stealer." 



Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, edited by G. D. 

 Morris and the Reverend W. Wilkes. 



The high standard of the recent numbers of this journal 

 show how real and successful the efforts of the friends of 

 horticultm-e in England have been in restoring to this 

 Society the character it enjoyed, and the usefulness it exerted 

 fifty years ago. The best work such societies can pei^form in 

 the present stage of horticulture is in promoting investigations 

 and discussions on subjects of practical importance ; antl then 

 in making the results of such discussions available to the 

 world by publication in cheap and convenient form. That the 

 Royal Horticultural Society is now doing this, a mere glance 

 at the list of papers, and the names of their authors, published 

 in this last part which has reached us, will make abundantly 

 apparent. 



There are three papers on Saxifrage, which are treated both 

 from a scientific point of view by Mr. J. G. Baker, of the Kew 

 herbarium, and culturally by Mr. George Paul and Mr. G. 

 Rcuthe. These are followed by three papers on the Hyacinth ; 

 Mr. Burbidge contributes a paper on the Narcissus, which is 

 followed by a discussion of seedling Daffodils by the Rev. 

 G. H. Engleheart, and by observations on Portuguese Narcissi 

 by Mr. Alfred \V. Tail. The Rev. Mr. Horner tliscusses 

 the AiuMcula ; and the numl)er concludes with Mr. \'eitch's 

 admirable paper on Orchids, past and present, to which refer- 

 ence has already been made in these columns. 



