August 21, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



333 



ter, while they have a certain dignity and solemnity 

 especially befitting a cemetery. 



As the ground on which they stand is supposed to have 

 been burned over in i8oi, when the adjacent country was 

 laid waste by fire, the trees are all of second growth. Such 

 of them as have been cut show from eighty-nine to ninety- 

 one, concentric rings, so that their age is less than one hun- 

 dred years, and they are still full qf health and vigor, and 

 promise to endure for years to come. Around them have 

 sprung up hundreds of other stately trees often six or seven 

 feet in girth three feet from the ground, and the forest cem- 

 etery has an unusual charm from the solemnizing effect of 

 these noble Pines, through which the wind ever murmurs 

 a gentle requiem for the departed. Impressive as is the 

 spectacle of the lofty unbranched trunks which now and 

 then indicate the. site of a primeval forest in Maine or 

 New Brunswick, there is something in the character of 

 these distorted giants more imposing still, so that every 

 visitor to this woodland burial place wanders through its 

 shades over the soft brown needles which carpet its undu- 

 lating surface with a sentiment akin to awe. The checking 

 of the upward growth in their youth has caused some of 

 the trees to send up as many as fourteen branches, each 

 one of the size and proportions of a leader, and some of 

 them five or six feet in girth. One of the trees shows a sort 

 of Siamese-twin connecting link between two mighty trunks 

 which rise almost perpendicularly to a considerable lieight. 



The keeper estimates that there are a thousand good- 

 sized Pines in the enclosure, several hundred of which are 

 between five and ten feet in circumference. Of the curious 

 branching trees of great size there are over a hundred, the 

 largest of which is eleven feet eight inches in girth, with 

 fourteen limbs forty to sixty feet long, some of them seven 

 feet in circumference. Its height is seventy feet. Another, 

 which is seventy-five feet high, has a girth of ten feet. 

 Adjacent Pines, less remarkable in growth, measure from 

 seven and a half to nine and a half feet round. 



Fine, well-kept gravel roads wind among these giants, 

 and from certain open spaces of rising ground there are 

 noble views of the St. Croix River, with chains of wooded 

 hills marking its course. From the river the ground on the 

 British side rises in a series of ridges, on one of which the 

 cemetery is situated, at some distance from the busy little 

 town of St. Stephen, which connects by a bridge with 

 Calais, Maine. The whole river is remarkable for its fine 

 landscape effects, enhanced by the rich coloring of its red 

 granite shores and beaches. Its great tides, coming from 

 the Bay of Fundy, rise at St. Stephen to the height of 

 twenty-five feet and recede, leaving but a thread of a stream 

 to indicate its course, though it is a quarter of a mile in 

 width at its head-waters, broadening at its mouth into Pas- 

 samaquoddy Bay, with six hundred islands breaking its 

 imposing surface. 



No one who turns his summer way to that neighborhood 

 should fail to take a look at the remarkable Pines of the 

 St. Stephen cemetery. ^ „ ,,. 



Hhigham, Mass. Mary C. kohbins. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



Notes on Aquatic Plants. 



Marliac's Hardy Nymph/eas. — I have seen English-grown 

 flowers of some of the choicest of Monsieur Marliac's new 

 Water-lilies, which are exceedingly beautiful. They are at 

 present too expensive for any except enthusiasts with am- 

 ple means, and it is probably from their not coming true 

 from seeds and their slowness to develop supplementary 

 tubers, that they will be rare for some years yet. But they 

 are quite worth all that their raiser asks for them, and no 

 one, however extravagant in praise he may have been, 

 has said more for them than they deserve. They are quite 

 hardy in the south of England, and they improve both in 

 the size and the color of the flovvers as they get older. In 

 Mr. Robinson's garden at Gravetye, Sussex, where they 

 have been established several years, the flowers are from 



six to nine inches in diameter and their colors are glorious. 

 The best of those I have seen from a garden at Hartlemere 

 is Nympha;a Robinsoni, a large flower of a rich crimson 

 color flushed with orange. Next to this I should place 

 N. INTarliacea ignea and flammea, the flowers of which are 

 of a rich rosy crimson color. N. Laydekeri fulgens and pur- 

 purea are almost blood-crimson ; N. Laydekeri lilacea is 

 rosy purple with a lilac shade An exquisite variety of 

 N. odorata, named Caroliniana, has numerous long nar- 

 row petals of a soft blush-white color, tinged with pink at 

 the base and deliciously fragrant. With the exception of 

 the last named the whole of these Nymphajasare not uni- 

 formly colored, the outer segments being thickly peppered, 

 as it were, with the red color on a whitish ground. As the 

 flowers fade they approximate to each other in color, a 

 character which appears to indicate a common origin, or 

 at any rate very close relationship. The production of 

 these beautiful Nymphasas has occupied much time and 

 careful manipulation on the part of Monsieur Marliac. I 

 have tried often to hybridize Nymphai-as, but have only once 

 met with any success. Monsieur Marliac claims to have 

 crossed N. Lotus with the northern species represented by 

 N. alba, but the progeny does not appear to have been 

 sent out yet. It still remains for some one to cross N. Lotus 

 with the stellata, or the latter with the alba section. Our 

 most beautiful Nymphieas open their flowers at night and 

 close them before noon, which is a drawback in gardens 

 where the public are admitted only in Ihe afternoon. 



Nelumbium sPEciosuM. — We have flowered three distinct 

 varieties of the Sacred Lotus this year, namely, the double 

 white variety, which is somewhat shy, having produced 

 only two flowers, although the plant is in vigorous health. 

 The tinge of pale green at the base of the petals in this 

 variety adds a charm to its chasteness. The second one 

 is a rose-colored variety with enormous leaves on stalks 

 six feet long, and the third is a giant in leaf and flower, the 

 latter being rich rose-red, almost crimson. There are other 

 varieties yet to flower at Kew, a collection of the best and 

 most distinct of the Japanese varieties having been ob- 

 tained last year from a reliable nurseryman, in that countr)'. 

 I find that this plant does better when planted in a bed of 

 soil in the large Water-lily tank where the water is about 

 six inches above the top of the soil than it does when 

 planted in a mud-bed in a corner, or in a pot or tub in 

 which water is always standing. There is no nobler pic- 

 ture in our plant houses now than a big group of this plant 

 in the middle of the Water-lily tank, with all kinds of Nym- 

 pheeas growing in the water about it. There are less 

 worthy objects worshiped in these times than the Lotus. 



Victoria regia. — Considerable variation in the size and 

 red tinting of the flowers is observable in this plant. This 

 year the Kew specimen is unusually good, the flowers 

 being half as large again as those of the plant grown last 

 year, and the red tints displayed on the second day, when 

 the petals reflex, are clearer and brighter than on most flovv- 

 ers that I have seen. Here the Victoria is treated as an 

 annual, the seeds being sown in February, the first flower 

 usually expanding in the third week in July. The temper- 

 ature of the water in the large tank is kept at about seventy- 

 five degrees ; the house is always well ventilated and the 

 water is kept constantly moving by a running tap at one 

 end and an overflow at the other end of the tank. This 

 year the soil in which the plant is growing is the same as 

 that used last year, a new departure which has been fol- 

 lowed by excellent results, the leaves being larger, with a 

 deeper rim than I liave seen at Kew for years, and there is 

 a total absence of spot, which in previous years has disfig- 

 ured the leaves, and which, according to Mr. Massee, was 

 caused by a fungus found in fresh cow-manure. 



LiJiNOCHARis Plumieri IS a handsome plant for aquaria, 

 as it grows quickl}^, ripens seeds alnindantly and will 

 thrive in any corner where there is a little mud. At Kew 

 it is planted in the bed containing a big mass of Papyrus 

 Antiquorum, mixed with Caladium Chantini, and the effect 

 produced by the long-stalked bright green leaves of the 



