February 20, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



73 



change in southern agriculture. Those plants are Ber- 

 muda Grass, Cynodon Dactylon, and Japanese Clover, 

 Lespedeza striata. Pity it is that part of the common name 

 of the last-named species should be a misnomer, as the 

 plant is not a Clover. Both of those plants have largely 

 spread over the more eastern Gulf states. They will soon 

 cover most of Texas. They are hardy and e.xxellent 

 forage-plants. Bermuda Grass, as a plant fully able to 

 take good care of itself, will prove a great boon to the 

 farmers of Texas. As a food for all live stock, as a shelter 

 and a fertilizer of the soil, to hold the dew and the rain, 

 and to prevent washing of soils and embankments, it has 

 no superior. It is no wonder that in its native India, 

 where it is more needed even than in Texas, the Hindoos 

 rank it among their plant gods, and ascribe to it terms of 

 reverence and worship. There have been many meaner 

 things worshiped than Bermuda Grass. 



Gainesville, Tex. E. N. Plank. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Notes on Aris.ejias. — A collection of these plants makes 

 an interesting feature at Kew during the early months of 

 the year, when most of them flower. Over twenty species 

 are represented, out of a total of about fifty, which are dis- 

 tributed over the temperate and tropical regions of Asia, 

 chiefly the Himalayas, and one is North American. Some 

 of these deserve to rank with good garden-plants, though 

 as yet they have received little attention from horticultur- 

 ists — in Europe, at any rate. All the species have tuberous 

 root-stocks similar to the Caladiums, which they also re- 

 semble in losing their leaves and resting for a period every 

 year. In some species the leaves are folded at the base, 

 so as to form a sort of stem, and the blade is trisect or 

 pedate. In form and coloration the leaves are generally 

 ornamental, the stalks being mottled or striped, and the 

 leaflets margined with pink or brown. The inflorescence 

 is in the form of a trumpet or funnel, one side being pro- 

 longed to form a long flap or hood, the tip of which is 

 sometimes a long hair-like tail. In color the spathes vary, 

 some being green and brown, others purple, with white 

 stripes, others red-brown, and so on. The spadix in some 

 of the species is often very long and filiform, and some- 

 times is clothed with long setose hairs. The flowering 

 season extends over about two months. None of the spe- 

 cies have a disagreeable odor when in flovi'er. A vase 

 filled with a collection of the flowers of Ariseemas is a 

 pleasing and uncommon object. The plants at Kew are 

 started into growth in January, vv'hen the tubers are shaken 

 out of the soil in which they have been at rest since the 

 leaves died away in July or August, when they were placed 

 under a stage in a cool greenhouse. The tubers are cleaned 

 as if they were Caladiums, and then potted, either singly or 

 several together, in a mixture of peat, loam, leaf-mold and 

 silver sand. The tubers are buried two inches below the 

 surface, and the soil only slightly pressed about them. 

 They are then placed on a tan or cocoanut fibre bed in a 

 greenhouse where the atmosphere is moist and the tem- 

 perature falls to about fifty degrees in cold weather. As 

 soon as the growths push through the soil the whole should 

 be well watered and afterward kept moist, these plants 

 being, if anything, swamp lovers in a state of nature, as, 

 indeed, are all tuberous-rooted Aroids of which I know 

 anything. Should the fleshy white roots push above the 

 surface of the soil a top-dressing with cow-dung and loam 

 may be given. When the spathes open, the plants may be 

 placed in the conservatory or a cool greenhouse. When 

 the flowers fade, the plants should be encouraged to keep 

 green as long as possible, so as to insure good tubers for 

 the following year. 



The American Indian Turnip, or Jack-in-the-pulpit, Ari- 

 ssema triphyllum, grows well, and flowers annually here in 

 a border against a south wall outside, its companions being 

 the Sauromatums and Arum crinitum. These are left in the 



ground undisturbed year after year, and never suffer from 

 cold. The position is one where the soil is always rather 

 moist, a condition that appears to suit them. 



The following are the best of those species grovi^n at 

 Kew during the last ten years : 



Aris/ema speciosum. — This is a beautiful plant, and as 

 easily cultivated as a tuberous Begonia. It is a native of 

 the Himalayas at from seven to ten thousand feet, and was 

 first introduced in 1872, when a figure of it was published 

 in the Bolanical Magazine. It has since been figured in 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle and The Garden. It produces one, 

 sometimes two leaves, the petioles of which are two feet 

 long, brownish green, with whitish marbling ; the blade is 

 tripartite, the leaflets each a foot or more long, nearly half 

 as wide, narrowed at the apex to a tail-like tip, wrinkled 

 and colored dark green, with a reddish margin. The 

 spathe is erect on a stalk about half a foot long, and 

 measures from the base to the top of the hooded portion 

 six or eight inches, beyond which there is a tail two inches 

 long. The spadix for four inches from the base is as thick 

 as a man's little finger ; beyond that it is a thin filamentose 

 tail from one to two feet long. The color of the whole is 

 rich vinous-purple, with lines of grayish white running 

 from the base of the spathe upward. The purpose of this 

 tail attached to the spadix and reaching to the ground is 

 supposed to be to lead crawling insects up to the flowers 

 to aid in fertilization. A remarkable character in this spe- 

 cies is that of being sometimes monoecious and sometimes 

 dioecious. It ripens seeds under cultivation. 



Aris/ema fimbriatum was introduced from Penang in 

 1884, when figures of it were published in the Botanical 

 Magazine and elsewhere. Recently Messrs. Sander & Co. 

 have imported it in quantity. It has a solitary leaf, three 

 ovate acuminate-tailed leaflets of a rich green color borne 

 on a red-brown petiole a foot long. The spathe is six 

 inches long, hooded, the lower portion light green, with 

 white stripes, the upper purple and white ; the spadix is 

 thin and tail-like, hangs down to a length of six inches, 

 and is clothed with blackish bristle-like hairs an inch long. 

 This species requires stove treatment always. 



AKIS.EMA FiLiFORME is B. Malayan species of recent intro- 

 duction. It has pedate leaves, the leaflets lanceolate-acu- 

 minate, sometimes a foot long, the petiole red-brown, with 

 gray marbling. The scape is two feet high and bears sev- 

 eral smaller cauline leaves ; spathe-tube two inches long, 

 green, shading into brown ; limb five inches long, two 

 inches wide, hooded and colored dark brown, with a me- 

 tallic-green shade ; spadix six inches long, the upper por- 

 tion narrowed into a smooth brown tail-like appendage. 

 Though wanting in brilliancy of color this is a handsome 

 stove plant. It should be always kept in the stove and 

 moist. At Kew it does not die down, in which respect it 

 resembles Richardia /Ethiopica. I do not see any differ- 

 ence between A. filiforme and A. Wrayi, of which there is 

 a figure in the Botanical Magazine, t. 7105, beyond that of 

 color, the spathe of the latter being pale green, almost 

 white in places, and the tail a little longer. They are alike 

 in habit and stature and in behavior under cultivation. 

 Both of them are in flower at Kew now. 



Aris.ema Griffithii-Hookerianum was introduced and 

 flowered in 1879 by Mr. H. N. Elwes from the Sikkim, 

 Himalaya. There is a figure of it in the Bolanical Mag- 

 azine, t. 6491. It has a large tuber, usually two leaves, the 

 petioles of which are a foot long, half an inch in diameter, 

 smooth and green ; the three leaflets are nearly a foot long, 

 six inches wide, dark green, tinged with yellow along the 

 margins. The flower-stalk is short, and it bears an erect 

 spathe, which is tubular below and colored black-purple, 

 with paler stripes ; the upper portion is hooded six inches 

 across and curiously inflated on each side, suggesting the 

 puffed-out shoulders of a lady's dress of the present fashion ; 

 this portion of the spathe is dark purple, with green retic- 

 ulating veins. The spadix is thick at the base and elon- 

 gated above into a hair-like appendage, which is some- 

 tiines three feet long. This is one of the most remarkable 



