February 6, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



55 



ered in southern Brazil by Libon in 1865 and distributed 

 by Linden, the Belgian nurseryman, in 1867. 



It differs from Gunnera scabra, which is a native of Chili 

 and Bolivia, in being more robust, with broader, more 

 elegant and more spuiy leaves and in having much taller 

 flower-spikes. Where there is room for both, both are 

 worth growing, but if only one Gunnera is wanted, then 

 G. manicata is to be preferred. According to Mr. Baker, 

 G. chilensis is an older name for the plant generally known 

 as G. scabra, which has been in cultivation since 1849. I 

 have seen the Kew specimen of this a mass of big leaves 

 fifteen feet through and eight feet high, the leaf-blades 

 being over four feet across. This, however, is dwarfed by 

 a specimen of G. manicata seen by Mr. Burbidge in County 



on the high mountains of Imeretia, in upper Mangrelea, 

 and other parts of the Orient, where it replaces the .Spruce 

 of central and northern Europe, and often forms vast for- 

 ests. From other Spruce-trees it may be distmguished by 

 its more slender branches and by their dark green crowded 

 leaves that cover them. The habit of cultivated trees as 

 they appear in this country is particularly graceful and 

 attractive ; the long upward sweep of the lower branches 

 and the spray-like branchlets standing out freely from the 

 dark body of the tree and allowing opportunity for a free 

 play of lights and shadows, give a charm to the Oriental 

 Spruce which no other hardy Spruce-tree possesses, and at 

 once attracts the eye and exxites the imagination. The 

 first Oriental Spruces planted in the United States are thirty 



Fig. 8. — Gunnera manical.i, in Cornwall, England. — See page 54. 



Down, Ireland, which had twenty-five leaves, the stalks as 

 thick as a man's arm and si.x feet high, the diameter of the 

 whole being thirty-five feet, that of the largest leaf-blade 

 ten feet three inches. In Guernsey there is a long ravine 

 through which a stream runs, and which is entirely filled 

 with this Gunnera, it having become naturalized there. 



London. "• ''• 



Plant Notes. 



PiCEA ORiENTAOS. — Of the evergreen trees from foreign 

 countries that have been planted in the northern Atlantic 

 states, no other, perhaps, is so full of promise as a perma- 

 nent inhabitant of our parks and gardens as this species. 

 The Oriental Spruce is a large and common tree in many 

 countries adjacent to the Black Sea, or the Anti-Lebanon, 



or forty years old, and are now more than fifty feet tall, so 

 that while we do not know it yet in its adult state, and cannot 

 determine whether old trees will be as beautiful and satis- 

 factory as young ones have proved to be, it is safe to say 

 that this tree is perfectly hardy from Boston to Philadel- 

 phia, and that it will retain its beauty for half a century at 

 least. Of rather less rapid growth than the Norway Spruce and 

 several of our American species, it is particularly suited to 

 decorate lawns and small pleasure-grounds, and it is re- 

 markable that it is so little known and so rarely planted. 

 Good specimens of the Oriental Spruce can be seen in Cen- 

 tral Park in this city, and there are several unusually 

 fine ones in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. One of the oldest 

 and best of these trees in the country stands on the grounds 

 of Mrs. Rufus Leavitt, at Flushing, Long Island, and, of 

 course, there are good trees in the collection of ]\Ir. 



