264 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 384. 



a rich red color. So farno flowers have been produced by 

 cultivated plants, and I refer to it again novi' to record its 

 hardiness at Kevi^, about a dozen seedlint; plants out of a 

 batch of fifty left out all winter having survived the cold 

 and started again into vigorous growth. A remarkable char- 

 acter in this species is that of the seedlings developing a 

 fleshy bole-like stem or rather base, about four inches long 

 and as thick as a man's thumb. The shoots were all killed 

 down to this thickened portion, which remained uninjured, 

 and from the apex of which the new shoots have sprung. 



Two Goou HARDY AzALEAS are A. amrena and the variety 

 of A. indica known as Ledifolia. They have withstood 

 the severe cold of last winter as well as any of the Japa- 

 nese plants, and they have flowered vi'ith a profuseness 

 surpassing, if that is possible, their behavior when grown 

 in pots under glass. Any one who has once seen these 

 plants out-of-doors in the garden of Sir E. Loder, at Horsham, 

 in Sussex, when laden with flowers, and looking as happy 

 as Heather — happier, indeed, than the latter looked this 

 year after the frost — will not think of again treating them 

 as indoor plants, in the south of England at any rate. It 

 is surprising that these two plants should only recently be 

 proved hardy here, seeing that they have been in cultiva- 

 tion about seventy years. Another variety of A. Indica, 

 sent out by Messrs. Veitch & Sons as The Mikado, is also 

 quite hardy at Kew. It has sub-prostrate branches and 

 rosy-red medium-sized flowers. 



PiEONiES. — English gardens are now aglow with her- 

 Iiaceous Paeonies, which have sprung somewhat suddenly 

 into popularity, owing largely to the many beautiful varie- 

 ties raised by such growers as Messrs. Kelway, of Lang- 

 port ; Messrs. G. Paul & Son, of Cheshunt, and Messrs. 

 Lemoine & Son, of Nancy. Messrs. Barr & Sons grow them 

 in enormous quantities, and the display of them in the nur- 

 sery at Thames Ditton is worth going a long way to see. 

 These are preeminently plants for the herbaceous border ; 

 they are also most effective when planted in large bold 

 masses on the lawn. At Kew there is a terrace-garden of 

 about a quarter of an acre devoted exclusively to them and 

 the varieties of P. arboreum, hundreds of large clumps 

 occupying beds in the grass. The display began with the 

 Moutans last month, and now in the middle of June the 

 grandeur of the herbaceous sorts is such as to attract the 

 attention of crowds of visitors, who are delighted to see a 

 revival of these old-fashioned garden flowers. Many of 

 the new varieties have a powerful and pleasing fragrance 

 which is preferable to the disagreeable odor of the older 

 sorts. There are all shades of color between pure white, 

 yellow and magenta, and a considerable range of variety 

 in size and form. Paeonies prefer to be let alone when 

 once planted, and they like a deep rich loam liberally 

 manured. In dry weather they should be watered freely. 

 The flowers are most useful for room-decoration, lasting 

 well if cut just when the buds burst. Of course, only those 

 that are fragrant are to be recommended for rooms. 



Oriental Poppies are the glory of our borders and wild 

 garden all through the month of June. No plants produce 

 such a show for so small an outlay of money and labor. 

 They flourish in almost any kind of soil, quickly forming 

 large masses of handsome foliage and crowds of enormous 

 bright scarlet cups elevated on elegant stalks well above 

 the leaves. We grow them largely, and there are now 

 several well-marked varieties, some with bright orange- 

 scarlet flowers, others with a large black-purple blotch at 

 the base of each petal, others with flowers of a deep claret 

 color, and others again colored rich crimson. There is no 

 clear line of demarcation between Papaver orientale and P. 

 bracteatum — at any rate, in gardens — the darker color and 

 the large floral bract by which the latter used to be distin- 

 guished being found in some forms of the former. These 

 Poppies are perennial, but they will flower in a year from 

 seed. 



Saxifraga PYRAMiDALis. — This plant is quite hardy near 

 London, some examples of it left in an exposed position in 

 the rock-garden at Kew having passed through the late 



severe winter uninjured, and flowered in the first week in 

 June as well as plants carefully grown in pots in a frame. 

 It is by far the best of the Saxifrages for the garden, and 

 many thousands of it are grown in pots for the supply of 

 the London market, a plant in a four-inch pot producing an 

 erect pyramidal raceme of white flowers two feet, or even 

 more, in height. Probably the merits of this plant are well 

 known to your readers, although even here it is not by any 

 means widely cultivated, our friends from the country be- 

 ing usually totally unacquainted with it. To produce tall 

 racemes the plants should be limited to a single crown. It 

 is called S. cotyledon by botanists, but the name here 

 given is universal for it by growers. 



Inula glandulosa. — A standard English book on garden 

 flowers speaks of the genus Inula as "perennial plants of 

 the Composite family, none of which are very important 

 fur the garden." Now, it. may be truly said that few Com- 

 posites are more worthy of a place in the garden than I. 

 glandulosa. In the rock-garden at Kew it has occupied a 

 conspicuous position for some years, and every year it 

 sends up a crowd of slender leafy stems a yard long, each 

 terminated by a single flower-head five inches across, some- 

 thing like a Sunflower, but more elegant in the broad silk- 

 like fringe of ray-florets than any Sunflower known to me. 

 The disk, which is two inches across, is a dense bush-like 

 cluster of hair-like stigmas standing above the florets. The 

 color is, however, its chief charm, pure old gold, the color 

 of an Australian sovereign. The flowers last a week or 

 two, and are perfection for room-decoration. The plant is 

 as hardy as a Dock. It is a native of the Caucasian Alps, 

 and has been known in gardens since 1804. A plant of it 

 was certificated this week under the erroneous name of I. 

 Hookeri, a widely different species, native of the Hima- 

 laya, with pale purplish flower-heads only two inches 

 across. There is a figure of it in the Botanical Magazine, - 

 t. 64 1 1. 



London. W. WatSOn. 



Plant Notes. 



Styrax Americana. — This shrub, which flowers in the 

 middle of June, is not often seen in our gardens, although 

 few of our native shrubs have a more graceful habit, and 

 when its slender branches are decorated with its drooping 

 racemes of pure white bell-sha]ied flowers it has a delicate 

 beauty quite its own. In its native habitat it reaches a 

 height of from four to eight feet, and is usually found in 

 lov\' ground and along the margins of swamps, although 

 it will thrive in gardens under ordinary garden con- 

 ditions. Its range is south of Virginia, but it is quite • 

 hardy as far north as New England. The Japanese Sty- 

 rax, S. Japonica, is quite as hardy and, perhaps, more 

 showy, since its petals are broader and the flowers larger. 

 They are not borne in racemes, but hang singly on the 

 under side of the branches. S. Obassia becomes in 

 Japan a tree twenty to thirty feet high, of graceful form, 

 with leaves more than six inches across, and white bell- 

 shaped flowers nearly an inch in length, and borne in 

 long pendulous racemes. It is a comparatively recent 

 introduction, but it has proved hardy in the middle states, 

 and will, perhaps, be the most valuable plant of the family. 

 It is to be said against these plants that the flowers are 

 quite fugacious, and that they are largely hidden by the 

 foliage, except when borne on stems high enough to give 

 a view of their under side. Judicious pruning when young 

 will give the plants a better form than they naturally 

 assume, which is often too open, but the foliage is clean 

 and lustrous, and they ought to find a place in every con- 

 siderable collection of shrubs. They are closely related to 

 theSilver Bell-tree, Mohrodendron Carolinum, which is easily 

 raised from seed, and upon which they may be success- 

 fully grafted. 



Hemerocallis flava. — This good old-fashioned plant has 

 just passed out of bloom. It is a native of south Europe, 

 Siberia and Japan. It has been long in cultivation, and is 

 one of our best and most useful plants for the herbaceous 



