January 23. 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



00 

 00 



Quercus alba and Q. Muhlenberg;ii, and after observing it 

 for three successive seasons I still think it the same. 



Last fall I discovered several more hybrids, and will 

 mention those that I noticed more particularly. A hybrid 

 Quercus macrocarpa x Muhlenbergii was found one mile 

 east of Independence in a grove of Red and Shingle Oaks. 

 It has the light-colored trunk and smoothish limbs of Q. 

 Muhlenbergii, but some of the leaves resemble those of 

 Q. Muhlenbergii and others those of Q. macrocarpa, while 

 the fruit is exactly between that of Q. macrocarpa and of 

 Q. Muhlenbergii, and has no fringe. Another hybrid was 

 observed by myself and Rev. Cameron Mann near Shef- 

 field, in this county, and quite a number of trees were 

 noted. The tree appears to be Q. macrocarpa x bicolor, 

 and they occur in a grove where Q. bicolor and Q. imbri- 

 caria were the prevailing Oaks, with no sign of Q. macro- 

 carpa present. The trunks were generally light-colored, as 

 in Q. bicolor, and some of the leaves were those of that 

 species, and others were like those of Q. macrocarpa. The 

 fruit was intermediate in character, but approached that of 

 Q. bicolor in shape and Q. macrocarpa in size. 



Another tree, a hybrid evidently of Quercus rubra and Q. 

 imbricaria, was found a mile east of Independence, stand- 

 ing alone in a pasture, but the supposed parents were both 

 present within a short distance. The leaves e.x'hibit all grada- 

 tions between those of Q. rubra and those of Q. imbricaria, 

 and the fruit is intermediate between the two species, and 

 larger than the fruit of Q. imbricaria. 



These six hybrids are derived from six different species, 

 and from the apparent ease with which they intermingle 

 it is expected that there are many more in this locality. 



Specimens of all but the first one of the trees noted above 

 are deposited in the herbarium of the Missouri Botanical 

 Garden and in the herbarium of the Arnold Arboretum. 



Independence, Mo. B. F. BusJl. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



Talaumas. — Sir Joseph Hooker begins the one hundred and 

 twenty-first volume of the Botanical Magazine with a figure 

 of Talauma Hodgsoni, prepared from a plant which flow- 

 ered for the first time in cultivation in the temperate house 

 at Kew this summer. The species was discovered by Sir 

 Joseph in 1848, in the eastern Himalaya, forming forests 

 in the valleys of Sikkim, at an elevation of 6,000 feet. He 

 describes it as "one of the noblest of the flowering forest- 

 trees of the Himalaya, a country which, considering its 

 narrow area, contains, perhaps, more handsome Magnoli- 

 aceous trees than does any other of equal dimensions in 

 India, if not of the world." The handsomest of all is, of 

 course, Magnolia Campbellii, which is hardy in the warmer 

 parts of this country, and forms a big shrub in the neigh- 

 isorhood of Cork, and when in flower has no rival among 

 the Magnolias grown here. 



Talauma Hodgsoni was received at Kew about twenty 

 years ago, and for a time grown in a tropical house. 

 About seven years ago it was removed to the temperate 

 house, where one of the plants is now a handsome tree 

 twenty-five feet high, with leaves two feet long. In Sik- 

 kim it grows to a height of forty feet, forming a thick 

 trunk sometimes six feet in girth. The flowers, which are 

 produced singly on the ends of the branches, are six inches 

 across, the fleshy sepals colored vinous purple externally, 

 the petals white, tinged with rose at the tips. They are very 

 fragrant and, unfortunately, very fugacious. 



I noticed the flowering of this plant in one of my letters to 

 Garden and Forest a few weeks ago, and shortly afterward 

 received from Mr. H. Nehrling, of the Milwaukee Public 

 Museum, a letter suggesting that as the genus Talauma 

 would probably be useful for gardens in the southern United 

 States it might be worth while calling special attention to 

 them in these pages. 



Thegeniis is closely related to Magnolia, differing only 



in the arrangement of the carpels and their mode of dehis- 

 cing. -They are all trees or shrubs, and, so far as I know, 

 evergreen. The flowers are generally large and v'ery fra- 

 grant. Fifteen species are known, and in their distribution 

 they are very remarkable, being found in South America 

 as well as tropical and subtropical Asia, extending up to 

 Japan. Only few of them have as yet been introduced into 

 gardens, the oldest among those now in cultivation being 

 Talauma Candollei, v\'hich first flowered at Kew in April, 

 1862, and has flowered there probably every year since. 

 It is grown in the Palm-house in a pot, where it forms a 

 leggy shrub, six feet high, with ovate dark green leaves 

 six to ten inches long. The flov\-ers are solitary on the 

 ends of the branches, nodding, about six inches across 

 when fully expanded, the sepals and petals fleshy, creamy 

 white, changing with age to a tawny brown, and, from the 

 time when the buds first burst to the fall of the petals, 

 emitting a powerful and delicious pineapple-like odor, one 

 flower being sufficient to fill the whole of the large Palm- 

 house with a pleasing fragrance. Dr. Lindley says it can 

 only be propagated by grafting it on T. pumila, but cut- 

 tings of it have been rooted at Kew. The plants grow very 

 slow. They require stove treatment, an example tried in 

 the temperate house at Kew having succumbed to the first 

 low winter temperature, in Java, where T. Condollei is a 

 native, it grows to a height of fifteen feet. In the Botanical 

 Magazine, t. 6614, there is a figure of a smaller-flowered 

 form which had been sent to Kew by Louis Van Houtte, 

 the Belgian nurseryman, as Magnolia Galleotiana. 



Talauma pumila is another Javanese species, much 

 dwarfer and bushier than T. Hodgsonii, and, though 

 smaller in flower, quite as powerfully fragrant. It has 

 been grown at Kew many years, forming a bush two feet 

 high, with ovate dark greeji leaves four inches long, and 

 yellowish white flowers three inches across. A plant has 

 been in the temperate house for some years, but it grows 

 slowly there, and rarely blooms, whereas in the Palm- 

 house it flowers annually. 



Talauma Plumieri is a native of Dominica and St. Lucia, 

 in the West Indies, but it has not yet been introduced into 

 gardens. It forms a large tree, often eighty feet high, the 

 wood of which is strongly scented. The leaves are ovate, 

 four to six inches long, glabrous, with strong venation, 

 and the flowers are as large as in T. Hodgsoni, white, 

 tinged with pink, and very fragrant. 



Talauma ovata was discovered in the Organ Mountains, 

 Brazil, by Gardner in 1838. He describes it as a large tree 

 about forty feet high, growing in swampy places, and says 

 the powerful odor exhaled by the flowers extended more 

 than half a mile from the tree. The flowers, which are as 

 large as in Magnolia conspicua, are of a dull yellow color, 

 and the fruit as large as a man's fist. 'Another name for 

 this species is T. fragrantissima. 



Talauma gigantifolia, a native of the Malay Peninsula, is 

 remarkable for the size of its leaves, which are sometimes 

 a yard long and a foot wide. It forms a large tree, the 

 flowers being four inches across, white and very fragrant. 



Talauma mutabiles, a native of Moulmien, is very simi- 

 lar to T. Candollei, and has white, very fragrant flowers. 



London. W. WatSOU. 



When vistas are to be cut through tall-grown wood a clear 

 idea of the effect from every view-point is essential. This 

 can be gained at any season, but the work is most suc- 

 cessfully done in spring ; for the structure, as well as 

 the outline, of each tree may then be distinctly seen. 

 During some days accordingly, as the progress of vege- 

 tation is slow or r'Spid, scarcely any two trees are ex- 

 actly of the same color; while one retains its wintry hue, 

 another is forming colored buds, a third is in fuller bud, a 

 fourth bursting, a fifth in pallid leaf, a si.\tli of a deeper tint, 

 so that, at this critical juncture, tlie branches of adjoining trees 

 may be seen distinctly, how intimately soever they may be 

 mixed with each other ; and thus the outline of either may be 

 seen, before the other be removed. — Planting and Rural' Or- 

 nament, i7g6. 



