220 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 379. 



Notes. 



Some of the florists' windows are now decorated witli sprays 

 of Purple Beech and Laburnum. The dark wine color and 

 soft texture of the young Beech-leaves, the light green of the 

 trifoliate leaves of the Laburnum, and tlie rich pure yellow of 

 its long pendent racemes make a very pleasing combination. 



A male plant of Nepenthes bicalcarata is now in flower at 

 the Botanic Garden in Washington. In The Gardeners' Chroni- 

 cle, last year, it was reported that the same thing had happened 

 somewhere in England, and the flowers were arranged in the 

 form of an umbel. The specimen in Washington shows a fas- 

 ciated growth at the base of the spike, the remaining part be- 

 ing simdar to the inflorescence of other Nepenthes. 



A Washington correspondent writes of a specimen of Acer 

 insigne, on a grassy slope facing to the west ; it is thirty 

 years old, only twenty feet high, and is a beautiful small 

 tree with large handsome palmate leaves, which, during even 

 the hottest summers, preserve their green color, owing, per- 

 haps, to their leathery texture. This tree is a native of Persia, 

 and commends itself to those who are looking for lawn-trees 

 which will not attain a large size very quickly. 



The rooms of the New York Flower Mission, at 104 East 

 Twentieth Street, were opened last Thursday for the reception 

 of flowers, fruit and delicacies for the sick. Fresh flowers with 

 long stems, and carefully packed for transportation, may be 

 sent on Mondays and Thursdays throughout the summer sea- 

 son. Packages not exceeding twenty pounds' weight are car- 

 ried free of charge by the express companies, as we have 

 explained in former years when noticing this interesting charity. 



In a late report made to the Minnesota Horticultural Society, 

 Mr. R. Knapheide, of St. Paul, recommended that the game 

 wardens of the state be empowered to protect wild fruits, 

 which he declares are in quite as great danger of extinction 

 there as the wild game is. He stated that in order lo secure 

 grapes, for example, reckless pickers cut the vines off and tore 

 down the entire plant, so that if the practice continues many 

 kinds of wild grapes and other fruits will be totally annihilated 

 in a few years. 



Professor Foster, the well-known authority on Irises, has 

 raised a hybrid from seed out of I. paradoxa, fertilized by I. 

 Korolkowi, the seed parent belonging to the Oncocyclus sec- 

 tion, and the pollen parent to the Regelia section. The flowers 

 are described as very beautiful in The Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 the prevailing tint of the falls being a rich brownish purple, 

 almost black, with purple veins on a translucent pale violet 

 ground, while the standards are thinner, with radiating veins 

 on a violet ground, and, altogether, it seems to be an interest- 

 ing addition to the class of bearded Irises. 



Large plants of tender and crisp-looking Romaine lettuce, 

 started under glass and grown out-of-doors on Long Island, 

 now sell for ten cents each. Mushrooms, which cost $1.50 a 

 pound durmg the recent period of cold weather, when their 

 growth was checked, are quite plentiful since the warm days 

 of last week, and bring seventy-five cents a pound. Florida 

 tomatoes cost thirty cents a pound, and the more solid product 

 of greenhouses, fifty cents. Of southern vegetables alone very 

 nearly 100,000 packages were unloaded on the railroad and 

 steamship docks of Jersey City and New York during last week. 



The current number of The Garden contains a colored plate 

 of Acidanthera bicolor, an Abyssinian plant of the Iris family, 

 which ought to be more generally known. As long ago as 

 1888 we published a figure of this plant by Mr. Faxon, a repro- 

 duction of a photograph, showing its appearance when several 

 of the bulbs were planted and grown in a tub, and some inter- 

 esting details as to its cultivation by Mr. Endicott. The plant 

 is nearly allied to Gladiolus, and can be treated like lender 

 species of that genus, although it likes a stift'er soil. The plants 

 that were grown in a tub flowered in October after frost had 

 destroyed the out-of-door garden, and at this season their fra- 

 grant and pendulous flowers of creamy white, with chocolate- 

 brown blotches, are very effective for decorating conservatories 

 and living-rooms. When the bulbs are planted early the plants 

 will flower in a border m late summer, but the flowering-time 

 can be easily retarded by planting the bulbs late. 



Mr. George H. Englehart, well known as an expert in raising 

 Narcissi, writes to The Gardeners' Chronicle that the plant 

 known as Narcissus triandrus pulchellus is really a natural 

 hybrid between N. triandrus and N. jonquilla. The flower of 

 this plant appeared to Mr. Englehart to have a perceptible Jon- 

 quil scent audit was sterile, and from thisand other reasons he 



inferred that it was a hybrid, and, therefore, some ten years 

 ago he began to fertilize N. triandrus with pollen from the Jon- 

 quil. The seedlings, however, all died before flowering, until 

 tliis year some have bloomed, and the artificially bred flowers 

 seem to have all the characters of N. triandrus pulchellus, with 

 the corona whiter than the perianth and the true Jonquil 

 scent ; the leaf-character and all the other features of the 

 variety pulchellus are also present. Mr. Baker, in comment- 

 ing on this specimen, seems to endorse the view of Mr. Engle- 

 hart, that the plant we have known as a variety of N. triandrus 

 is probably a hybrid between that plant and some of the Span- 

 ish or Portuguese forms of N. jonquilla. 



Experiments on a considerable scale were made last year in 

 Orange County, Florida, in cultivating Castor-beans as a com- 

 mercial crop. The planting was deterred until May, so that 

 the plants had only begun to ripen seed in quantity when the 

 frost came and destroyed them. About 350 bushels of beans 

 were gathered in two cuttings, and the experimenter has reason 

 to believe that if he had planted in February a longer season 

 and greater growth would have given a thousand bushels more 

 before the cold killed the plants, since there were from three 

 to five heads on each stalk which were too green to be of any 

 value when the frost came. Of course, last season was 

 specially unfavorable, and for ten years past Castor-oil plants 

 have lived through the winter and begun to form new heads 

 and ripen seeds early in spring, and it is thought that in the 

 so-called Orange belt plants will go through tiie winter, as a 

 rule, and bear seed for ten or twelve months. It often occurs 

 that plants live five or six winters, and become real trees be- 

 fore there is frost enough to kill them. The experimenter 

 does not seem to be disheartened, and the tract has been 

 replanted with beans for this year. 



Nearly 50,000 crates of strawberries reached this city during 

 last week from North Carolina, the eastern shore of Virginia, 

 Maryland and Delaware. The heaviest supply came on Wed- t^ 

 nesday, and 15,500 crates were put on the market. Until the ' ' 

 latter part of the week, when heavy rains caused the berries to 

 come wet and sandy, they arrived firm and well ripened, 

 though large berries of choice or extra quality have been 

 scarce. Prices at retail range from ten to thirty cents a quart 

 box. The first blackberries of the season seen here, from 

 Georgia, are small and seedy and sell for fifteen cents a quart, 

 and green gooseberries, from Maryland, bring the same 

 moderate price. The only pears now found in the markets are 

 V. Barrys, from California. This variety is successfully carried 

 over in cold storage until nearly midsummer. Tiiey are now at 

 their best, the white juicy flesh having a sweet, slightly vinous 

 flavor ; they cost $1.25 to $1.50 a dozen. Newtown Pippins, the 

 last ot the season, cost fifty lo seventy-five cents a dozen, and 

 the same price is asked lor the few remaining Northern Spies, 

 while Roxbury and Golden Russets bring thirty to fifty cents, 

 iind the few choice Baldwins command fancy prices. New 

 Calitornia apricots, in five-pound boxes, not fully mature and 

 far from luscious, bring $1.75, and Black Tartarian cherries 

 cost twenty-five to forty cents a pound. Florida garden-grown 

 pineapples of the largest size, from the keys, bring $1.50 each. 

 Jamaica limes, small and green, in which state they are pre- 

 ferred for use in fancy drinks, are offered at twenty-five cents 

 a dozen. The sales of fresh tamarinds, from the West Indies, 

 have greatly increased this year. Besides the general cooling 

 qualities tor which the pulp covering the seeds is popularly 

 recommended, the fruit is credited with curative action in some 

 forms of sore throat. Their grateful sourness is due to citric 

 and other vegetable acids. Mangoes, from the same islands, 

 sell at the rate of $1.50 a dozen. Their aromatic fragrance 

 when fully ripe is to most persons a higher recommendation 

 than their stringy and rather insipid flesh, as we get them, but 

 probably very little fruit of choice varieties ever reaches north- 

 ern markets. The large supply of bananas, with the abun- 

 dance of other fruits, has caused a drop in the extreme prices 

 of a fortnight ago, and while a few red bananas of choice 

 quality and large size bring seventy-five a dozen in the higli- 

 class fruit-stores, good yellow fruit costs only from fifteen to 

 twenty-live cents a dozen. The last Almeria grapes sell for 

 fifty cents a pound, and selected clusters ot Black Hamburgs, 

 from Rhode island hot-houses, command from $2.00 to $3.00 

 a pound. Some idea of the immense quantity of fruit iian- 

 dled in New York city may be had from the wholesale auction 

 sales ot one day last week, when 25,000 boxes of lemons were 

 bought by retail dealers, besides 15,500 boxes of Mediterra- 

 nean oranges, 400 barrels of Jamaica oranges, four car-loads 

 of California oranges, 55,500 bunches of bananas, 8,000 dozens 

 of Bahama pineapples and 600 crates of the same fruit from 

 Cuba. 



