December 25, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



621 



Coreopsis Drummondii. — Few flowering- plants can compare 

 with tills for winter cutting, eitlicr in lieauty or productiveness. 

 It excels Leptosyne maritiiiia, Chrysanthemum segctum, or the 

 yellow variety of C. frutescens, and, at the same time, does 

 not require half the care. A few seeds sown in September 

 gave us plants which are blooming now and will continue to 

 do so all winter. Florists could plant them about eighteen 

 inches apart, in borders, giving about three feet of head 

 room, but, for convenience, they can be grown in ten-inch 

 pots. They will take almost any quantity of water and delight 

 in liquid manure frequently. 



The flowers coming from a packet of seed will vary in 

 shade of color and in form and size of flower, but with careful 

 selection, which we have adopted, a very fine and constant 

 variety may be obtained. 



Alpine Auriculas. — Like many other so-called hardy plants, 

 these require some protection in winter in order to grow them 

 well, but they are worth the trouble. We have made a specialty 

 of them for the last two or three years, forcing them first suffi- 

 ciently to have them in bloom two or three weeks before the 

 natural time, which is in the early part of May. For this pur- 

 pose we pot about twenty-five and leave the remainder in a 

 cold-frame covered with a few Pine-needles. - Auriculas are 

 easily raised from seed sown in a cool frame, from which 

 frost is barely excluded, about the first of February. They 

 will make good plants the first year and bloom the following 

 spring. The soil most suitable is a good loam with well 

 decayed manure. Green manure should never be used 

 with them. T. D. H. 



Wellesley, Mass. 



Quercus d«ntata. — The Daimio Oak of Dr. Hall is said to be 

 (p. 537) about twenty-two feet high and the finest the writer 

 has seen. I did not know I had one so near the best. Mine 

 is twenty-two feet seven inches, and measures twenty-five 

 inches in girth one foot from the ground. Plants grafted from 

 this tree have borne acorns, though smaller trees, of course, 

 than the parent. It is one of the most rapid growing of all 

 Oaks. Three feet for one season is not imcommon ; and I 

 have had branches five feet. My tree was from an acorn from 

 Japan, kindly given to me by my friend Peter Henderson, not 

 so many years ago, though I neglected to note the exact date. 



Germantown, Pa. Thomas Meekan. 



Elaeagnus angustifolia. — The note on page 600 in regard to the 

 Indian variety of Elaeagnus " known in gardens often as E. 

 angustifolia," suggests a good word for the typical E. angusti- 

 folia of east Europe and central Asia as an ornamental tree, 

 and a windbreak tree for the prairie states. As we have 

 received it from Riga, Proskau, Voronesh and other points in 

 east Europe, and a3 introduced extensively into Nebraska by 

 the Russian Mennonites, it does not appear to vary in hardi- 

 ness, habits of growth, size of tree, or beauty of foliage. It is 

 a much larger and stronger grower than the form known as 

 E. hortensis of south-west Europe, yet it is quite as handsome 

 in expression and as fragrant when in bloom. 



We now have trees in Iowa, chance introductions, fully thirty- 

 five feet in height and with a diameter of trunk of nearly one 

 foot. As to hardiness, I have seen it growing in perfect 

 health on the Red River of the North at Fargo, and I have 

 never known it injured in any part of north Iowa during our 

 recent test winters. It is a dry-climate plant and I suspect it 

 will thrive much better on the prairies than in the relatively 

 moister and cooler summer air of tlie states east of the lakes. 



In isolated positions, with the stem trimmed up, it stands 

 much better than our native Shepherdia of the upper Missouri, 

 which sun-scalds with us on the south side of the stem if 

 trimmed into tree form. 



The E. argentca of the upper Missouri is also perfectly 

 hardy as a bush upon the prairies, as is the .£■. macropJiylla of 

 ceatral Asia ; but unlike the E. angustifolia, these handsome 

 bushes are great sprouters, and will not, probably, become 

 popular for ornamental planting. 



Berberis Thunbergii. — Mr. Jack's words of praise of this 

 X)riental Barberry are well merited and I am glad to state that 

 it is a thing of beauty also in our trying climate. As Japanese 

 plants are tender with us, I suspect the species is from north- 

 west China or central Asia. We have a section of low spread- 

 ing hedge of this plant beside one of our drives which attracts 

 much attention duruig the growing season, and at this time 

 (December 14th) the berries are as bright and handsome as in 

 early fall. That it is a distinct species is shown by the fact 

 that seedlings we have grown retain the peculiarities of habit, 

 leaf and fruit of the original plants. J . L. Budd. 



Ames, Iowa. 



Correspondence. 



In the Hickory Matter. 



To the Editor of G.'^rden and Forest : 



Sir. — In the issue of-G.VRDEN and Forest for September 

 25th (vol. ii., pp. 459, 460), under the heading "Notes Upon 

 Some North American Trees, XL," being an installment of the 

 exceedingly valuable and interesting series of papers upon tliis 

 subject from tlie pen of the editor-in-chief, there is a discussion 

 of the questions raised by me last November (jS'^/Z. Torrey Club, 

 XV., 277), as to the generic name and classification of the 

 Hickories. As I believe, however, that neither Professor 

 Sargent nor I have written all that might advantageously be 

 written on this subject, I venture to send you the following 

 additions. 



And, in the first place, I am of the opinion that there are 

 more valid species than either he or I have yet been able to 

 define. The specimen with curiously pallid under-surfaces 

 of the leaves from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, alluded to 

 by me at the place al;ove cited, may well be taken as an indi- 

 cation of an addition to the lists, from a region as yet but par- 

 tially explored. Then there is a specimen here, collected by 

 Mr. Frank Tweedy in Tom Greene County, Texas, evidently 

 of the Pacanier section of the genus, but differing from the 

 Pecan in its markedly punctate leaves and some other char- 

 acters. As there are two names published, viz., Hicko7'ia 

 Texana, Le Conte, and Carya Tex ana, C. DC, both based on 

 specimens of Texan origin, neither of which have yet been 

 satisfactorily referred by subsequent writers, and Mr. 

 Tweedy 's specimen is only in flower, we are not yet able to 

 characterize the species which it represents. Most likely it 

 is H. Texana, Le Conte, but that was described from fruiting 

 specimens only, and no mention is made of punctate leaves. 

 H. myristicceformis has punctate leaves, but belongs to the 

 other section (Euhicoria) of the genus, unless, indeed, its sep- 

 aration into two sections, as indicated by me, should be an- 

 nulled by this Texan tree, a point which complete -collections 

 only can determine. 



Professor Sargent differs with me in the spelling of 

 Rafinesque's generic name, replacing the feminine noun 

 Hicoria by Hicorius, which is masculine in form. Some of 

 the reasons which governed me in taking up Hicoria are 

 given in considerable detail in my paper above cited. There 

 are a good many others, however, which my learned critic 

 appears to have overlooked, but which hardly seemed neces- 

 sary to establish my position. I did not discuss the fact that 

 the names of trees are feminine in the Latin language, and 

 that the Latinization of the Indian name " Hiccory " would 

 naturally be Hicoria; nor did I allude to the fact that Ra- 

 finesque's two modes of spelling actually represent but one 

 word, which even made of masculine form in Hicorius 

 would yet be feminine, and the specific names must agree in 

 gender, and become, at any rate, H. alba, H. glabra, H. inini- 

 ma, etc., rather than H. albus, H. glabcr and H. minimus, as 

 he has written them. Clearly the two modes of spelling do 

 not represent two genera, for there could not be Hicoria and 

 Hicorius any more than Popicla and Populus. The eccentric 

 Rafinesque recognized this, for he wrote in his " Flora Ludo- 

 viciana " not Hicorius integrifolius, but H. integrifolia, and 

 elsewhere used the two spellings interchangealjly. And so I 

 do not think Professor Sargent's charge that I have made a 

 lot of synonyms will be considered a just one by students of 

 botany or dendrology. 



But the point in which he appears to me most at fault is in 

 the following statement ; he says, in speaking of Rafinesque's 

 separation of the Hickories from the Walnuts : " His first 

 attempt was made in 1808, in the Medical Repository (v. 352), 

 in which, in a single paragraph, he simply enumerated, after 

 the word Scoria, the specific names, in parenthesis, of five 

 Hickories." Now, I do not wish to accuse Professor Sargent 

 of unfairness, but I must reproduce here, for the sake of argu- 

 ment, just what Rafinesque is made to say at this place : 



" Scoria (tormcntosa, mucronat;i, alba, pyriformis, globosa, 

 etc.), Juglans alba, L., tomcntosa, mucronata, I^Iich., etc. 

 The Hickory." 



Now, it is just as plain as day that Rafinesque indicated here 

 a generic name for the Hickory, by giving the equivalent 

 names already published by Linn;cus, Michaux and others 

 imder Juglans. This mctliod of publication, by citing equiva- 

 lents, has been used more or less by all modern autiiors. 

 Indeed, Professor Sargent has liimsclf used it in the very 

 article I am now discussing. Dcsvaux, in translating Rafin- 

 esque's paper into his Journal de Botanique, has it " Scoria 

 tomentosa, mucronata, etc., ce sont les Juglans alba, L., etc." 



