May I, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



179 



Greenhouse Plants in Bloom.— Among the noteworthy plants 

 in bloom here at the present time are several good old 

 things which are not so well known as they might be. Among 

 the climbers, Petraea volubilis is quite a pleasing sight. The 

 flowers are arranged in long racemes opposite each other; 

 they are bright purple, both calyx and corolla being nearly of 

 the same color. There is a white variety not very commonly 

 met with which is a pleasing companion to the purple one. 

 The Petraea, from its habit of growth, requires a position where 

 it can be planted out. It is a quick grower, reaching a height 

 of about twelve feet before it makes much of a show. 



Adenocalymna comosa, a beautiful yellow-flowered Bigno- 

 niaceous vine, is blooming for the second time this season. In 

 the large Palm-house it may be seen twined in festoons from 

 Palm to Palm, and occasionally a long shoot hanging down, 

 beautifully laden with flowers. This is a good vine for a large 

 greenhouse ; it seems to do equally well in sun or shade. It 

 is propagated by means of cuttings taken off before the young 

 wood begins to push out. The cuttings will root either witli 

 or without a heel. 



Botanic Garden, Washington. 6-. IV. Oliver. 



Adonis vernalis. — This thoroughly good plant is now in 

 bloom, the large yellow corolla, with its deeply cut leaf, re- 

 minding one of the earlier Winter Aconite, and makes a pleas- 

 ing successor. It is a native of southern Europe and is one 

 of the oldest garden-plants, although, strangely enough, it is 

 found in comparatively few American gardens. It is perfectly 

 hardy and thrives in almost any soil and situation ; it is a good 

 plant for the rock-work on the garden border. One caution 

 should be observed by those who try to cultivate it, and that is 

 to avoid transplanting it too often ; it should be planted where 

 it is to stay and left undisturbed for years. With this treatment 

 a single plant soon becomes a clump, bearing numerous flow- 

 ers and making a bright feature in the early spring garden. 

 The propagation is by division, but plants are so inexpensive 

 that it is much better to increase one's stock by purchase. The 

 best time for planting is October or early November. 



Jamaica Plain, Mass. -^. -^A *^. 



Correspondence. 



Notes from the South-west. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — We have just passed through the most severe winter 

 known here since the war. Gladioli and Montbretiasby the hun- 

 dreds, Cannas and Dahlias by the score, that I have left for fifteen 

 years in the open ground over winter, are this spring but bits 

 of rotted pulp. Solanum jasminoides, Physianthus albens, 

 Antigonon Leptopus, Ipomcea Mexicana and Manettia cordi- 

 folia, all beautiful half-hardy vines that for a half-dozen years 

 have stood the winters unprotected, sheltered only by a lee of 

 the building, are dead as the proverbial nail this spring. 



On the other hand. Peach-trees, the blossoms of which were 

 killed both last year and the year before, were remarkably full 

 of bloom this year, and I have never seen my Tea and Hylirid 

 Perpetual Roses with so little dead or unsound wood on them 

 at this season of the year. It is a matter of comment how full 

 of bloom all shrubs and trees are. It is worthy of notice, also, 

 that none of the hardier plants. Hyacinths, Tulips, Crocus, etc., 

 were injured in the least. 



The lesson is plain. We people of the south and south-west 

 must protect half-hardy bulbs and tubers over winter by heavy 

 mulching. To be sure, we may cover them ten times, and the 

 ground never freeze below a two-inch crust ; but the eleventh 

 time an exceptional winter may come, and the ground freeze 

 to more than twice that depth, when the entire stock gathered 

 together through many a laborious year will be lost. If this 

 mulching is of rotted manure the labor need not be lost in any 

 event, for by spring it is more rotted and friable, and can then 

 be dug in the beds to enrich them. Some of our beds were 

 lightly covered with manure last fall. In these quite a number 

 of half-hardy bulbs survived. A deeper covering would have 

 saved them all. 



One of our Pear-trees is showing a singular freak. It 

 is covered with extra-large flowers, each distinctly semi-double. 

 Each blossom has from ten to twelve broad, white petals, and 

 the large clusters are very ornamental. 



Pineville, Mo. Lora S. La Majicc. 



The Hardiness of the Cherokee Rose. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — On page 114 it is said that the Cherokee Rose is tender, 

 and in the north suited only to the greenhouse. 



Will you permit me, in the interest of the wider open-air 

 culture of this handsome Rose species, to say that a plant of 

 Rosa Sinica, obtained two years ago from Messrs. W. Paul & 

 Son, of Waltham Cross, England, has not only survived the 

 past winter here with absolutely no protection, but has now 

 broken vigorously into leaf almost to the tips of its spray-like 

 growth. Thirty-three degrees of frost were registered by the 

 thermometer in the screen and continued high winds pre- 

 vailed. 



Salem, N.J. G. L. C. 



[The Cherokee Rose, as naturalized in this country, is not 

 hardy as far north as New Jersey. It will survive mild 

 winters in Washington, but is not reliably hardy there. 

 It is a noteworthy fact, therefore, that a plant of this species 

 has survived the late trying winter in Salem, New Jersey, 

 and it would be very interesting to know from what quar- 

 ter Messrs. Paul & Son received their stock. It is a well- 

 knovi'n fact that plants of the same species vary in their 

 ability to resist cold when taken from a more southern or 

 more norUiern part of their natural habitat. Thus, the so- 

 called Japanese Persimmon, or Kaki, is only known in this 

 country as a semi-tropical tree, while plants of appar- 

 ently the same species flourish in a climate as rigorous 

 as that of New England, and, no doubt, seedlings from 

 these trees would prove hardy in a much colder climate 

 than the Kaki as it is known in Florida and southern Cali- 

 fornia. It may well be that Messrs. Paul & Son have re- 

 ceived some plants or seed of Rosa Sinica from a more 

 northern region than that from which the original Cherokee 

 Rose was derived. It is to be hoped that the stock from 

 our correspondent's plant will be tried in still more northern 

 latitudes. — Ed.] 



Recent Publications. 



List of the Pieridophyta and Spermatophyta growing im'lh- 

 oul adtivaiion in north-eastern North A7iierica, prepared by 

 the committee of the Botanical Club of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science, from the Memoirs 

 of the Torrey Botanical Club. Volume V. 



This book has grown out of the discussions of the princi- 

 ples of plant nomenclature which have been going on for 

 the last ten years in the United States with much activity, 

 and not always in the best taste. The matter was taken 

 up by the botanists of the American Association for the 

 Advancement of Science at their meeting held at Roches- 

 ter, in 1892, where a committee was appointed which 

 drafted the set of resolutions to govern the naming of 

 plants, which have been adopted in the preparation of this 

 report. It is unnecessary here to discuss the principles of 

 this code, as they are now well known, and are substan- 

 tially those adopted in this journal, and now by nearly all 

 the working botanists of the United States, and it is enough 

 to say, perhaps, that in most cases the catalogue appears to 

 have been well done, although an examination of some 

 groups will show that the compilers performed their work 

 carelessly, or were not supplied with all the literature on the 

 subject ; and in other groups species have been proposed 

 which can hardly be retained when the plants are studied 

 by monographers from the point of view of their characters, 

 and not merely of the names which botanists have applied 

 to them, as must have been the case in the preparation 

 of a catalogue of this kind in the short time that has been 

 devoted to it. The names of plants are important, of 

 course, to all working botanists, and it is well to have 

 those of north-eastern North America arranged here con- 

 veniently with their synonyms ; but, after all, the name of 

 a plant is one of the least important things about it ; cer- 

 tainly less important than its morphological characters, 

 relationship, distribution, properties and uses. 



It is now eight years since Professor Asa Gray died, leav- 

 ing his Sy7ioptical Flora of North America half-finished. 

 The task of completing this great work, in which it was pro- 

 posed to describe briefly all the plants in North America 

 north of Mexico, fell upon Mr. Sereno Watson. He died 

 three years ago, and since Professor Gray's death not a 

 page of the Synoptical Flora has appeared. Now, however. 



