May 22, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



205 



breeding new sorts, Mr. Douglas, after carefully selecting 

 his breeders, considered himself lucky to get one seedling 

 in a hundred that was worth growing for further trial. 

 This applies only to the show or edged Auriculas, seed- 

 lings of the alpine varieties being generally of good quality 

 and far less variable. Of course, all the named varieties 

 are propagated by offsets and division. The seed should 

 be sown as soon as ripe, usually aliout midsummer, and 

 kept in a cool shady place. It germinates freely in the fol- 

 lowing spring, and the seedlings are pricked off as soon as 

 they are large enough to be handled with safety. They are 

 again potted into single pots, flowering, as a rule, in the 

 second year from the sowing of the seeds. As a rule, a 

 full-sized plant can be grown in one year from the seed- 

 pot or from an offset. The offsets are planted in small pots 

 and kept under shaded hand-lights till well rooted. The 

 right season for repotting is May, the soil to use is good 

 loam, and the position for the plants during the summer is 

 in an airy frame on the shaded or north side of a building 

 or wall. Mr. Horner has said that many people failed with 

 Auriculas because they would set them out under garden- 

 hedges, much to the enjoyment of snails and caterpillars, 

 or keep them in cold damp pits or even down in areas. 

 The successful grower has cool, light, airy houses or frames 

 for them, and with these conditions, plus an intelligent 

 knowledge of the nature of the plants, no department of 

 floriculture yields greater or more lasting pleasure than that 

 of Auricula growing. ,„ ,„ 



London. ^ W. WalSOIl. 



Plant Notes. 



Akebia quinata. — This vigorous twining plant is generally 

 used for the covering of fences, arbors and the like, and 

 it will quickly spread over large surfaces. But while 

 it is most useful for that kind of work, it is also interest- 

 ing when trained as an upright bush on a border or 

 lawn, or when allowed to ramble over some shrub which 

 is of little value. The prettily shaped leaves, which are 

 digitate, are unlike those of most other vines, and they 

 hold their shape and color well into the winter. The 

 flowers, while lasting only a short time, are exceedingly 

 pretty ; the female flowers open first, and are more 

 showy than the male flowers, being of a rich claret color, 

 and two or three times as large as the others. They pos- 

 sess the additional merit of being very sweetly scented. 

 A good way to train the plant to a bush form is to stick a 

 few good stout tree branches in the ground; it will soon 

 ramble over them and make a most beautiful object. The 

 reason that this vine does not ripen fruit more frequently 

 is probably owing to the fact that it flowers so early in 

 the year, and that it produces the female flowers first, and 

 these are nearly past before the males have had time to 

 ripen their pollen. Occasionally, however, individual 

 plants in this country and Europe produce fruit. In 

 Japan its long, slender, pliable shoots, which are of 

 uniform size throughout, are much used for wicker-work 

 and even for baskets, trays and sun hats. Cuttings of the 

 ripened wood put in a cold frame about the beginning of 

 September will root quickly. The plants need considera- 

 ble sunlight for their best development. 



ExocHORDA GRANDiFLORA. — This Pearl Bush, as it has been 

 aptly called, is now altogether the most striking shrub in 

 Central Park, although most of the specimens there have 

 been allowed to grow into disagreeable open shape, which, 

 together with thin foliage, makes a rather unattractive 

 plant when out of flower. In New England this is not a 

 long-lived shrub, and rarely attains a height of more than 

 six or eight feet. South of this it becomes a small tree, or 

 a shrub from fifteen to twenty feet in height. If cut in hard 

 after it flowers every year it can be held to something like 

 a compact shape, but if left to itself it has a better effect 

 with some lower-growing shrubs massed in front of it to 

 hide its naked stems. This is by no means a new shrub, 

 having been known to cultivation for nearly half a century, 



but for some reason it has never become as common as its 

 near relatives, the shrubby Spiraeas. Its great beauty con- 

 sists in its large flowers, which appear with the leaves in 

 long axillary racemes. They are borne in great abundance 

 and are of a dazzling white. Large plants in this latitude 

 produce seed freely, so that the plant is readily propagated 

 in this way. 



Lily of the Valley, Fortin's Variety. — This is a variety 

 of French origin, and though it vvas distributed a few years 

 ago by Peter Henderson & Co., and perhaps others, it does 

 not seem to have created much of a stir, and it is not much 

 grown in American gardens. It is a noble variety, much 

 more vigorous and larger in all its parts than Convallaria 

 majalis. The stem is tall and is clothed with flowers over 

 twice the size produced by the ordinary variety under the 

 same treatment. The bells are of the purest white. 



Iris Statell^:. — This is a Sicilian variety of Iris lutescens 

 and is one of the most attractive Irises, of medium heio-ht 

 which flowers at this time. It has large prominent stand- 

 ards, tongue-shaped and smaller reflexing falls. The flow- 

 ers are of a pearly-white color, of very fine form and most 

 distinct. It is a fine garden variety and excellent for 

 decoration. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



A Blue Water-lily from Mexico. 



THE handsome Water-lily * figured on page 206 was 

 collected by Mr. T. S. Brandegee near Mazatlan, 

 Mexico, in November, 1893. The flowers, which vary 

 somewhat in size, are sometimes fully six inches in diame- 

 ter and are of a pale blue color. The stamens are yellow, 

 with long anthers and minute tips. The leaves are nearly 

 orbicular, with few teeth, greenish above, with a few 

 blotches, and of a dark purple beneath. The flowers were 

 obtained from a small pond in an enclosed pasture con- 

 taining about a hundred plants. Although those were the 

 only specimens seen, the plant was reported to grow in 

 abundance about the neighboring river. I am not quite 

 sure of the species, but it appears to be nearest Nymphtea 

 elegans of Hooker, which was figured in the Bolanical 

 Magazine in 1 85 1, table 4604. Mr. Brandegee's specimens 

 agree almost exactly with this figure, except that the flow- 

 ers are considerably larger. N. elegans has until recently 

 been one of our rarest species, and for nearly forty years 

 remained uncollected {Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, xv. : 14). In 

 late years it has been frequently sent in by such well-known 

 collectors as Mr. C. G. Pringle, Mr.G. C. Nealley and Mr. J. E. 

 Bodin. The original specimens of N. elegans are said to 

 have come from New Mexico, but all our recent collections 

 have been made from Texas. The species has not been 

 reported from the west coast of Mexico, and this fact, taken 

 in connection with the difference in size of the flowers, 

 leaves some doubt as to above reference of these speci- 

 mens. It certainly belongs to no other Mexican species 

 with which I am familiar. 



Deparlincnt of Agricullure, Washington. J- W.. RoSe. 



Cultural Department. 

 The Rock Garden. 



vV- 



T 



HE winter, just past, proved to be one of the most trying 

 of recent years for vegetation on rock-work. On the 'first 

 of May the plants seemed two weeks behind time, Imt the dry, 

 hot vveatlier of the past week has hurried all spring Mowers 

 into bloom, so that everything has cauglit up. We cannot 

 complain of many speciHc losses, but nuich injury has been 



^Castalia elegans (Hook.), Greene, i^.v//- Torrey Bot. Cluh,\s.\%% (iSSS).— Nym- 

 pha?a eleg'ans, Hook., Bot. Mag., t 4604 (1850). 



Leaves nearly orbicular, a little lono;er ihan broad. 7^2 by 6 incbcs, with 7 or S 

 radiatinj^ nerves on each side ol' the musial line, dark green or somewhat purplish 

 above, dark purple beneath, the margins nearly entire with 5 or 6 small scattered 

 teeth ; lobes overlapping at base except their apices: flowers 4 10 6 inches in diam- 

 eter, light blue : sepals brownish at base, light green above with purple blotches, 

 light blue within; outer sepals without a scarious inlermargin and inner sepals 

 nearly like the petals ; petals 12 to 20, oblong, obtuse : stamens not numerous, about 

 75 filaments broad, yellow ; anthers longer and narrower than the filaments, yellow- 

 ish ; the prolonged connective a mere tip, at most 1,^2 lines long. 



