March 6, 1S95. 



Garden and Forest. 



93 



one of the largest and most abundant trees in the 

 southern part of Arizona, where it was discovered in 

 1 87 1 by the party of United States explorers under 

 command of Lieutenant George J\I. Wliipple. Quercus 

 reticulata in Arizona and New Mexico is confined to the 

 summits and high canons of a few of the highest mountain 

 ranges, where, as a low shrub or small tree, it leads a 

 precarious existence, while Quercus Arizonica is a large 

 tree, the trunk sometimes four feet in diameter, growing 

 from the upper margin of the mesas to the mountain-tops. 

 In characters it is nearly intermediate between Quercus 

 reticulata and Quercus oblongifolia, resembling the latter 

 in its purple connate cotyledons, but differing from it in its 

 thicker bark, pubescent branchlets, thicker, rigid, pubescent, 

 oblong leaves, in its larger fruit and thicker cup-scales. It 

 is a tree, too, of higher elevations than Quercus oblongi- 

 folia, which rarely ascends ab'ove five thousand feet, cover- 

 ing, with Quercus Emoryi, the upper part of the mesas, 

 especially where mountain canons open to the plain, and 

 below the principal growth of Quercus Arizonica. 



QuEKcus DUMOSA. — Of all North American Oaks this spe- 

 cies of California is the most variable in the shape of its 

 leaves. The ordinary form of the coast-ranges in the 

 southern part of the state is a low shrub with oblong 

 leaves, rounded or acute at the apex, vi'ith sinuate or 

 spinose-toothed or entire, or slightly lobed margins, and 

 usually about three-quarters of an inch long and half an 

 inch wide, with short petioles and coarsely reticulate vein- 

 lets ; but in sheltered canons, on some of the islands off 

 the California coast, a few individual plants attain the size 

 and habit of trees, and produce large, deeply lobed leaves 

 not very unlike those of the eastern White Oak. This is 

 the Quercus MacDonaldii of Greene ; and no one, from the 

 mere examination of herbarium specimens taken from one 

 of these trees, could imagine that they belonged to Quercus 

 dumosa. When the trees are seen in their native thickets, 

 however, it becomes apparent that they are only more 

 vigorous individuals of a species which is represented in 

 the same thicket by individuals with small and entire or 

 spinescent or slightly lobed leaves. In these island canons 

 the same individual bears entire, spinescent, or rarely 

 lobed, large or small leaves on the same or on different 

 branches ; and vigorous shoots on plants with otherwise 

 small entire or spinescent leaves often produce large deeply 

 lobed leaves five or six inches long. Seen from a little dis- 

 tance these large-leaved individuals cannot be distinguished 

 by their habit, color and general appearance from their 

 associates. North of San Francisco Bay the prevailing 

 form of Quercus dumosa is distinguished by its rounder, 

 thicker and paler leaves, which are concave on the upper, 

 and strongly revolute on the lower, surface, with entire or 

 spinescent margins. This very distinct variety was called 

 by Engelmann Quercus dumosa, var. bullata, but as bullata 

 had been used before as a varietal name of another species 

 of Quercus, I shall substitute for it revoluta, and call this 

 variety Quercus dumosa, var. revoluta. 



Quercus Durandii. — This White Oak of central Alabama 

 and Mississippi, of central and western Texas and north- 

 eastern Mexico, was discovered in 1850 in western Texas 

 by the botanists of the United States and Mexican Boundary 

 Survey, and was first described by Torrey in the botanical 

 report of the commission, published in 1858, as Quercus 

 obtusifolia, var. brevilobata. The next year it was found 

 by Mr. S. B. Buckley in central Alabama, and in i860 was 

 described by him in the Proceedings of the Philadelphia 

 Academy as Quercus Durandii, but Torrey's name is older 

 than Buckley's, and so will have to be adopted, and as 

 Quercus obtusifolia (perhaps a misprint for ol)tusiloba) had 

 been used before Torrey applied it to this species, Torrey's 

 varietal name is taken up, and this handsome and distinct 

 southern White Oak will appear in The Silva of Nortli 

 America as Quercus brevilobata, a name which, fortunately, 

 pretty accurately describes the form of its leaves. 



Quercus Muehlenbergii. — The oldest varietal name of 

 this species, Quercus Prinus acuminata of Michaux, pub- 



lished in 1801, was passed over by Engelmann when he 

 raised this variety to a species because there was a Quercus 

 acuminata published by Roxburgh in 1832. Michaux's 

 varietal name, however, being older than Roxburgh's 

 specific name, it must be taken up under the rules of 

 nomenclature adopted by American botanists. Quercus 

 nana must replace Quercus ilicifolia, which was first de- 

 scribed by Humphrey Marshall in 1785 as Quercus rubra 

 nana, a fact pointed out as long ago as 1801 by Willdenow 

 & Muehlenberg in their paper on American Oaks in the 

 third volume of the ISlene Schri/len Gesell. Na/. Fr. 

 Berlin. And finally, m raising Chapman's Quercus ob- 

 tusifolia, var. parvifolia, from western Florida, to the 

 rank of a species, I find that parvifolia was used a year 

 earlier by Alphonse de Candolle as the name of a variety of 

 another Oak, so it is not available for this species, which I 

 wish to call Quercus Chapmani, in honor of the author of 

 Tlie Flora of Ihe Southern U?iiied S/ales, who first distin- 

 guished it. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



The Weather. — Severe frost has been experienced in 

 England since January 23d. The temperature at Kew has 

 been below freezing-point since the 25th — that is, for three 

 weeks, and from February 6th to 13th the minimum tem- 

 perature on the ground ranged from seven degrees to zero, 

 the maximum in the screen in the same period ranging 

 from twenty-three to thirty degrees. This is very excep- 

 tional, nothing approaching it having been known here 

 since the time of the Crimean war (1856). The Thames is 

 frozen over at Kingston ; a coach and four have been 

 driven across the Serpentine in Hyde Park ; theje is a water 

 famine in many districts in consequence of the freezing of 

 the water-mains, the frost having penetrated into the 

 ground to a depth of two feet. Following au exception- 

 ally mild November and December this severe cold is cer- 

 tain to do an enormous amount of injury to garden-plants. 

 The rise in the price of vegetables, including potatoes, has 

 been great, and it is probable that garden produce gener- 

 ally will be at a high premium when the thaw comes. 



■J'he Royal Horticultural Society held its annual gen- 

 eral meeting on February 12th. Sir Trevor Lawrence, the 

 President, drew attention to the principal features in the 

 report, which records, among other things, that twenty-two 

 exhibitions had been held ; that one hundred and seventy- 

 eight first-class certificates and three hundred and seventy- 

 one awards of merit had been adjudged by the several 

 committees to as many plants, fruits and vegetables ; that 

 the experimental and trial work in the garden at Chiswick, 

 under the superintendence of Mr. Barron, had been of an 

 important character, many new varieties of Cauliflowers, 

 Peas, Potatoes, Tomatoes and Strawberries having been 

 cultivated and examined by experts ; also of Carnations, 

 Picotees, Cannas, Clematis, Campanulas and other popular 

 garden flowers. The examination in the principles and 

 practice of horticulture, held on May 1st, had resulted in 

 126 candidates presenting themselves, nearly one hundred 

 of whom passed, two having won scholarships worth ^39 a 

 year each. 



A committee has been appointed to draw up a code of 

 rules and regulations forjudging at fruit and flower shows. 

 The Scientific Committee, composed of eminent men of 

 science, invite all interested in horticulture to submit to 

 them cases of diseased, injured or abnormal plants of all 

 kinds, and offer to vive advice in respect to the prevention 

 or cure of disease. The income of the society for 1S94 

 amounted to /'5, 5 50, and the expenditure to a little over 

 ^"5,000. The present condition of the society is on the 

 whole most satisfactory. The want of a suitable home 

 and exhibition hall for the society is still felt, and the fur- 

 ther development of Chiswick as a rc]3resentative school of 

 horticulture and experimental ground for English horticul- 

 ture is generally hoped for by those who know the value 



