August 7, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



313 



still on the somewhat shriveled petals. It is common now, 

 especially near Alexandria, where it fills the grain-fields 

 and covers the canal and railroad embankments with a pro- 

 fusion of brilliant scarlet, and is the type and ancestor of 

 the gay Field Poppy so plentiful all over Europe. It is 

 called by Boissier Papaver Rhoeas, van genuinum. 



The cotSn of King Amenophis, the builder of the Mem- 

 non statues, and dating from many years before that of 

 Ramses, was decorated with similar wreaths, some of 

 which still surround the uncovered mummy in the big hall 

 where the royal mummies are preserved, and tends to show 

 the remote date of the origin of the custom of decorating 

 the dead with flowers. 



Many interesting plant-remains were found in the coffin 

 of a private personage named Quent, and among others the 

 space between it and the lid was entirely filled with 

 branches of the Sycamore-tree, Ficus Sycomorus, that still 

 retained their leaves. The latter was a valuable and im- 

 portant tree and supplied some of the material for the 

 mummy cases, many of which, after three thousand years, 

 are still in a state of perfect preservation. It was used for 

 furniture, and many statues carved in its enduring wood 

 have come down to us from the early Dynasties, and it is 

 still a common tree everywhere in the country and the 

 largest of the shade-trees. The abundant small fruit is 

 used by the lower classes and is hawked in the streets of 

 Cairo. There is also a bowlful of the fruit of the Fig-tree 

 proper, Ficus Carica, at Cjiseh, and mi.xed with it are some 

 dates, all taken from funeral offerings. The Date-Palms, 

 Phoenix dactylifera, are the most abundant , and ofttimes the 

 only trees on the Nile, and its direcious character was 

 known to the ancients, for hieroglyphic texts speak of it, 

 and in his history Herodotus makes mention of the festival 

 when the trees were artificially fertilized, though curiously 

 enough they called the fertile one the Male Palm. The 

 leaf-rhachis was used then, as it is now, for the manufac- 

 ture of all sorts of useful utensils, chair-seats, bird-cages, 

 mats, sun-shelters, etc. 



The large nut of the Doum, Hypha-ne Thebaica, has also 

 been collected from the tombs. It is the Palm with broad, 

 fan-shaped leaves that is seen everywhere in upper Fgypt. 

 The fellahs say that the fruit is edible when young, though 

 when ripe it is so hard that it can only be split with a 

 hatchet. 



Of the cereals, Wheat, Triticum vulgare, is the most in- 

 teresting of the exhibit, as well as the one that is most fre- 

 quently found in large quantities. Almost any traveler can 

 secure a little jar of it, genuine "antica," at the necropolis 

 of Thebes, and during the excavations conducted by Mon- 

 sieur Naville at the temple of Queen Hatasu, at Deir-el- 

 Bahari, in 1893, it was lying in his office by the basketful. 

 The ancient Egyptians, for the better preservation of the 

 wheat, which was supposed to be deposited in the tomb 

 for the nourishment of the soul of the deceased, were in the 

 habit of varnishing the grains with some kind of resinous 

 substance. Egyptian wheat, after a drying period of over 

 three thousand years, has been sown by some credulous 

 folk — without success, however. 



A curious find were the bowlsful of a Lichen, Parmelia 

 furfuracea, found with the royal mummies. It was noticed 

 by the botanist Forskal more than a century ago in the 

 markets of Cairo, and he wrote a lengthy description of 

 how, mixed with flour, it caused fermentation. It comes 

 from the Greek Archipelago, and under the name of Cheba 

 is sold in the drug bazaar of Cairo to-day. Perchance the 

 ancients used it for the same purpose, and, therefore, the 

 reason of its frequent occurrence among their offerings. 



To return to the Water-lilies, it is strange that the Sacred 

 Lotus, the classical flower that Herodotus calls the Rose- 

 like Lily of the Nile, Nelumbium speciosum, has not been 

 found. It was very sacred and worshiped almost as a 

 divinity, and it was forbidden to eat its fruit. It is repre- 

 sented on some monuments, though with such fantastic 

 deviations from nature that it is scarcely recognizable. 

 They are cultivated in Cairo and elsewhere in the Delta, 



in private gardens, where they thrive without any special 

 care or cultivation being given them. 



That they are easy plants to grow is demonstrated in 

 this city, where, in most of the fountains, they are to be 

 seen during the summer months, along with the Papyrus 

 and many species of Nymphteas, and at the projier season 

 a small pond on. the west side of Central Park is filletl with 

 the great rose-colored flowers that stand proudly two or 

 more feet above the water. 



It would take too long to go through the entire list of 

 plant-remains that have been brought together from vari- 

 ous sources. Egypt is by no means entirely explored yet, 

 and its early inhabitants having a very creditable way of 

 writing everything they knew or owned on imperishable 

 stone, and of preserving everything that would resist decay, 

 there is no reason that knowledge of the greater portion of 

 their botanical and pharmaceutical possessions may not yet 

 come to light. Monsieur Victor Loret, in La Floi ePharaonique 

 enumerates 202 species with their ancient as well as mod- 

 ern names, and Mr. Perry Newberry, of Kew Gardens, has 

 already spent many months in Egypt identifying the veg- 

 etable remains found by Mr. Flinders-Petrie at Hawara, 

 Dashour and in the Graeco-Roman necropolis in the 



Fayoum. • 



New York. Anna IMuriay Vail. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



SOME notes on the most attractive herbaceous plants 

 now flowering in the open air at Kew may be of in- 

 terest to readers of Garden and Forest. A collection which 

 comprises in round numbers 6,000 species of herbaceous 

 and alpme plants capable of cultivation in the open air 

 necessarily contains numerous plants which are worthy 

 the attention of horticulturists, but which are not generally 

 grown in gardens, but the middle of July, after a season of 

 exceptional drought, is not, perhaps, the most favorable 

 time to see them. I have, however, jotted down the names 

 of some of the handsomest of the plants now in flower in 

 the borders and rock garden, and every one of these is 

 well worthy of a place among select collections of garden- 

 plants. The difference in stature and in size and color of 

 flower between plants of the same kind grown in good soil 

 and well watered and those grown in the natural soil of 

 the place and watered now and then is most marked. Cer- 

 tainly all herbaceous plants require good cultivation, and, 

 although they will grow and flower under starvation treat- 

 ment, they are, as a rule, miserable caricatiires of what 

 liberal treatment will produce. Delphiniums, well treated 

 here, are now eight feet high and magnificent; poorly 

 ti'eated, they are barely four feet high. This is equally 

 true of most plants, even Poppies showing the same marked 

 preference for rich soil. There are, however, two note- 

 worthy exceptions in the Verbascums and single Holly- 

 hocks, which are taller and handsomer on poor soil than on 

 rich. I believe manure to be the principal cause of disease 

 in the Hollyhock. Other plants which have done well in 

 somev\'hat dry positions and where the soil is not rich are 

 Lychnis Chalcedonica, three feet high, with crimson heads 

 four inches across ; Achillea ptarmica, the Pearl, three 

 feet high ; Geranium armenum and Spira;a Aruncus. 



Campanulas. — The best of these is Campanula persicifolia 

 in all its forms, especially the large pure white variety 

 called grandiflora. They have been in flower a month at 

 least, and they ai^s still beautiful. Being a perennial and 

 quite hardy, this is a most useful plant for open-air garden- 

 ing ; it is equally useful when grown in pots in a cold 

 frame to flower in spring in the conservatory. C. rapun- 

 culoides has stems four feet high crowded with rich purple- 

 blue bells. 



Chrysanthemums of the Paris Daisy section are too well 

 known to require more than passing notice. There is, 

 however, a robust form of the yellow Marguerite, called 

 Etoile d'Or major, the correct name of which is C. fruies- 



