294 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 387. 



California Academy of Sciences. The wood of Castanopsis, 

 analyzed, was from a tree cut in 1880 for the Forestry 

 Division of the Tenth Census of the United States. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



Pelargoniums. 



THE Pelargonium fills as important a place in indoor 

 gardening as is filled in the open-air garden by the 

 Rose and Rhododendron. The analogy may be carried 

 even further, the origin of the garden races of the three 

 genera being similarly mixed. The many and beautiful 

 varieties of Show, Fancy, Zonal and Ivy-leaved Pelargo- 

 niums now cultivated in every garden are the result of 

 cross-breeding and selection extending over a period of 

 something like one hundred years, and the work still goes 

 on, although with much less vigor than formerly. New 

 varieties are, however, added annually by such raisers as 

 Messrs. Lemoine, Cannell, Pearson and Turner, and some 

 idea of how much has been done in this country toward 

 improving and multiplying the Pelargonium may be gath- 

 ered from the fact that the Royal Horticultural Society 

 awarded certificates to about seven hundred varieties in 

 the period between i860 and 1890. Twenty years ago 

 these plants were much more in favor with the leading 

 English horticulturists than they are now, while in the first 

 quarter of the present century there were special exhibi- 

 tions, special publications and fervid discussions in the 

 horticultural periodicals, all devoted to the Pelargoniums, 

 much as they are to the Chrysanthemum at the present 

 time. But if Pelargoniums are not novi' in the first rank of 

 fashion they have not lost ground, for they are just as im- 

 portant in the gardens of the million as they ever were, and 

 I question if even the Rose is so universally grown and 

 loved as the Pelargonium. 



The history of the origin of the garden Pelargonium, so 

 far as it is known, has been admirably summarized by Mr. 

 Burbidge in his Propagation and Lnprovenient 0/ Cultivated 

 Plants, pp. 319-331. Much information concerning the 

 early sorts can also be obtained from Andrews' Monograph 

 of the Genus Geranium (1805), which contains beautifully 

 executed colored figures of the principal species, varieties 

 and seedlings then in cultivation. That the crossing of 

 the species one with the other had been in operation for 

 some time even at that early period is shown by the fol- 

 lowing extract from Andrews, who writes of " the introduc- 

 tion of the African species within the last twenty years 

 from the Cape of Good Hope, whose prolific character 

 seems to know no bounds in the production of endless 

 seminal varieties, which, Proteus-like, appear in ever-vary- 

 ing forms, and for which numerous variations we are 

 indebted to the industrious bee, which conveys the pollen 

 from one plant to another." 



Sweet's Gera7iiacei.e, a work of five volumes, published 

 1820-30, containing 500 colored pictures, chiefly of Pelar- 

 goniums, nearly all of them of known or supposed hybrid 

 origin, also contains much information as to the early 

 history of the garden Pelargonium. 



Of the 170 species of Pelargonium known only very few 

 can be traced in the races now grown. These races are, 

 roughly, four, the Zonal or bedding Geraniums, descended 

 from P. zonale and probably P. inquinans ; the Ivy-leaved 

 Geraniums, the progeny of P. peltatum and P. hederaifo- 

 lium ; the Show Pelargonium, from P. grandiflorum and P. 

 cucullatum, and the Fancy Pelargonium, the source of 

 which is unknown. This quartette excludes the scented- 

 leaved Pelargoniums, which can scarcely be said to be a 

 garden race. 



These four races are all quite distinct from each other, 

 and, except in one instance, they have refused to inter- 

 breed, crosses between the Show and Zonal, or Show and 

 Ivy-leaved sections being unknovi'n. But we have crosses 

 recorded between Zonal and Ivy-leaved sorts, although 

 they were "nearly useless for cross-breeding purposes, as 



they rarely produced seed or fertile pollen." The present 

 wonderfully improved race of Ivy-leaved varieties is said 

 to have had its origin in a chance seedling which made its 

 appearance in a garden in Nice about twenty years ago, 

 and which was secured by Monsieur Jean Sisley, a great 

 French breeder of Pelargoniums, who thought that owing 

 to its fertility it would prove valuable in the hands of a 

 clever hybridizer. 



Of course, all the varieties of Pelargonium are repro- 

 duced only by means of cuttings, their seeds being worth- 

 less except as a possible source of new varieties. But as 

 the proportion of promising seedlings to worthless weeds 

 is about one in ten thousand, the prospect of obtaining a 

 good variety by this means is not hopeful. A large pro- 

 portion of the varieties we grow are from bud-sports. So 

 far in relation to Pelargoniums generally. 



The beautiful Show and Fancy races of Pelargonium 

 still have many fanciers among English horticulturists and 

 still figure prominently at our plant exhibitions. The illus- 

 tration recently published in Garden and Forest was 

 from a photograph of a specimen exhibited at last year's 

 Temple Show by Mr. Turner, of Slough, who has been 

 famous as a raiser, grower and exhibitor of these plants for 

 nearly fifty years, and who has no rival among those who 

 grow them to-day. Some of Mr. Turner's specimens mea- 

 sure five feet in diameter and bear from one hundred to one 

 hundred and fifty trusses of expanded flowers, which are 

 usually at the best early in June. These specimens are 

 grown in about four years from cuttings. All the flowers 

 have to be "gummed" if the plants have far to travel, or 

 if they have to stand in an exhibition hall lighted by gas. 

 The largest pots used for these specimens do not exceed 

 one foot in diameter ; usually they are only nine inches. 

 It is unnecessary here to go into the details of the cultiva- 

 tion of such specimens, but the general grower of Pelar- 

 goniums will, perhaps, be interested in knowing that the 

 mixture Mr. Turner uses for his plants, both Show and 

 Fancy, is one of good yellow loam, well-rotted stable 

 manure, bone-dust, coarse sand and charcoal. The follow- 

 ing is a selection of the best dozen varieties in each section, 

 for which I am indebted to Mr. Turner : 



Show varieties : Amethyst, Duke of Norfolk, Goldmine, 

 Indian Yellow, Joe, Magnate, Maid of Honor, Martial, 

 Mrs. Coombs, Magpie, Sister of Mercy, Spotted Gem. 

 Fancy varieties : Ambassadress, East Lynne, Ellen Beck, 

 Delicatum, Fanny Gair, Lady Carrington, Miss E. Little, 

 Mrs. Hart, Mrs. Pope, Phyllis, Princess Teck, The Shah. 



London. W. WatSOn. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Carpinus cordata. 



THIS is one of the largest and, probably, the most 

 beautiful of all the ten or twelve species of Horn- 

 beam that are known. It belongs to that section of the 

 genus (Distegocarpus) which differs from the Hornbeams 

 of the United States and Europe by its deeply-furrowed 

 and scaly bark and large winter-buds, by the long lanceo- 

 late acute scales of the flower aments, those hi the stami- 

 nate inflorescence being distinctly stalked, and by the in- 

 volucres of the fruit which resemble in color and texture 

 those of Ostrya (the Hop Hornbeam), although, unlike 

 those of that tree, they are not bladder-like nor closed, a 

 large basal lobe or one or both margins of the ovate-acute 

 involucre being infolded over the nut, while in our Horn- 

 beam the involucre is halberd-shaped, usually three-lobed, 

 and the nut is not covered by it. 



Two of these peculiar Hornbeams, all that are now 

 known, inhabit Japan ; one of them, Carpinus Carpinus, the 

 type of the genus Distegocarpus established by Siebold & 

 Zuccarini, but subsequently reduced to Carpinus, has 

 already been figured in this journal (vol. vi., f. 56). It is 

 a tree forty or fifty feet in height, with a trunk sometimes 

 eighteen inches in diameter, wide-spreading branches, 

 dark green ovate-acute leaves, and clusters of fruit nearly 



