September i8, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



373 



ought to have been maintained.* In point of fact, how- 

 ever, the oldest name for this Rocky Mountain Willow is 

 Salix lucida, var. lanceolata, Hook., the type of which in the 

 Kevv Herbarium is No. 39 of the " Hooker, Barratt andTor- 

 rey" distribution, collected in the Rocky Mountains by 

 Drummond. But lanceolata is a homonym, several times 

 over, and, therefore, unavailable, according to the rule 

 maintained by Professor Sargent in the Si/va of North- 

 A merica. 



Salix flavescens, Nutt., var. capreoides (Andersson). S. 

 capreoides, Andersson, Proc. Am. Acad., iv., 60 (14). S. 

 flavescens, var. Scouleriana, Bebb, Watson &• Brewer, Bot. 

 Cal.,'n., 86. S. brachystachys, Bentham, var. Scouleri- 

 ana, forma crassijulis, Andersson, DC, Prod, xvi., part ii. , 

 224. S. Scouleriana, Barratt, sec. Hooker, Fl. Bor.- 

 Ani., ii., 145 in part. — The old name of the Flora 

 Boreali- Americana was discarded by Andersson because 

 he found that the type specimens in the Hookerian 

 herbarium consisted of flowers of Salix flavescens and 

 leaves of S. Sitchensis "glued to the same sheet." S. 

 Scouleriana thus becomes a synonym of both these spe- 

 cies in part, and, therefore, is not available for a specific 

 name. For the same reason it cannot be used for a varietal 

 name. We, therefore, fall back upon S. capreoides, Anders- 

 son, as next in point of date. In its restricted form this 

 does not well represent the variety of our north-west coast 

 in its widest departure from the Rocky Mountain type, but 

 it is unquestionably a synonym of a so-called Scouleriana, 

 and later was so regarded by Andersson himself 



Salix Missouriensis, n. sp. S. cordata, Muhlenberg, 

 var. vestita, Andersson, Monog. Sal. 159, and DC, Prod. 

 xvi., part ii., 252. Fort Osage on the Missouri River (Neu- 

 wild ex Andersson). Near Courtney, Jackson County, 

 Missouri, only twenty miles from the original lo- 

 cality (Professor Sargent, Mr. B. F. Bush). Nebraska 

 (Ex-Governor Furness). — A symmetrical tree with a 

 slender top, thirty or forty, or even fifty, feet in height, 

 trunk ten or twelve, rarely eighteen, inches in diameter. 

 One-year-old twigs stout, tomentose; leaves lanteolate or 

 oblanceolate, five to six inches long, from one to one and a 

 half inches wide, cuspidate-acuminate, narrowed from above 

 the middle toward the acute or rounded (but not truncate 

 or cordate) base, at tirst more or less clothed with silky 

 hairs, soon smooth and dark green above, except the 

 downy midrib paler, but not glaucous beneath, margin 

 glandular-serrate ; petioles downy, half an inch long, 

 stipules large, semi-cordate and pointed, or more rarely 

 reniform, obtuse ; aments appearing before the leaves, 

 sessile, densely flowered, the male oblong-cylindrical, one 

 and a half to two inches long, half an inch thick, the fertile 

 lengthening to three inches and becoming more or less lax ; 

 scales (relatively) large and very conspicuously invested 

 with long, straight, silvery hairs ; capsules glabrous, ros- 

 trate from a thick base, pedicel (relatively) short, three 

 times the length of the gland and not exceeding the scale ; 

 style medium, stigmas minute, entire. The name vestita, 

 being preoccupied, is changed to one indicative of the habi- 

 tat of the species, which, so far as known, does not extend 

 beyond the banks of the Missouri. "The aments usually 

 open aboutthefirstof February and have passed out of bloom 

 by March ist, whereas those of Salix cordata do not appear 

 till the first week in April." (Bush.) For one of the Cor- 

 datee, the extraordinary height and size of trunk attained 

 by this Willow, the repeated durability of the wood for 

 fence-posts, its early period of flowering, together with the 

 technical characters above given, would seem to amply 

 warrant its elevation to the rank of a valid species. At all 

 events, as such, it is much more likely to receive that fur- 

 ther study and criticism which will determine its true status, 

 than if left as a doubtful variety within the limits of such a 



* The work on tlie Willows of California, undertaken at t!ie request of Di-. Watson, 

 was almost the be.^innin^ of my special study of our w-^stern Willows. In those 

 days 1 was just a bit overawed by high authority, nor did I know then, as I came 

 to know later on, how prone Professor Andersson was to minimize, if not to alto- 

 gether ig-nore, the work of Nuttall, or I would have seen the propriety of reinstat- 

 ing Nuttall's name. 



polymorphous species as S. cordata. The sessile, thick, 

 very silky pistillate aments, before expansion, resemble 

 those of S. discolor. 



Salix Missouriensis has been mixed up with the so-called 

 " Diamond Willow " of the upper Missouri, but is there any 

 reliable evidence of any connection whatever between the 

 two 1 Several years ago Professor L. F. Ward collected 

 leaves of the " Diamond Willow," which are those of gen- 

 uine S. cordata. A section of the stem, shovi'ing the pecu- 

 liar arrest of wood-growth at the base of the atrophied 

 twigs, taken at the same time and measuring two inches in 

 diameter, indicates an annual wood-growth of one-twen- 

 tieth of an inch. We may readily see how the heart-wood 

 in such a case might have a closeness of fibre "equal to 

 Red Cedar"; but of all the members of the cordate group, 

 S. Missouriensis, with its remarkable vegetative vigor, 

 would be the last that would be suspected of growing two 

 inches in diameter in twenty years ! Has a stick of " Dia- 

 mond Willow," with the " diamonds " on it, so there could 

 be no mistake, ever been seen large enough for a fence- 

 post? After all the attention directed to this "Diamond 

 Willow " more than fifteen years ago, and the widespread 

 interest which was manifested at the time in a matter 

 which, as set forth, seemed to present important economic 

 considerations, it is, indeed, strange that the intervening 

 years have yielded so little in the way of verified knowl- 

 edge of the facts. ir o r, 1, 

 Rockford, 111. M. 6. BeOO. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



NOT only was the display at this week's meeting of 

 the Royal Horticultural Society large and brilliant, 

 but many novelties were shown, notwithstanding that this 

 is the dull season when every one who can get away is out 

 of town. A great gathering like that on Tuesday indicates 

 how active is the interest in horticulture here since it can 

 induce so many amateurs and professional growers to 

 devote a day each fortnight for the admiration of the 

 new and rare plants that have come into season since 

 the preceding meeting. 



The brilliancy of the exhibition was chiefly due to the 

 magnificent array of Gladioli, new hybrid Cannas, Dahlias 

 and the finest types of hardy perennials. Kelway's display 

 of Gladioli was finer than I have seen for years, owing, 

 perhaps, to the exceptionally warm early summer or to the 

 excessive rains during the past month. There were no 

 fewer than fourteen dozen flower-spikes, the majority 

 fully eighteen inches long. Many new seedlings were 

 exhibited for certificates. None of these shovi'ed any de- 

 cided break from the usual range of colors, less, indeed, 

 than might be expected, since attempts have been made to 

 intercross the novel and strange tints in Lemoine's race of 

 Gladioli with those of the older Gandavensis race. The 

 most striking variation in the new kinds seemed to be those 

 which have resulted from crossing the wide-open flowering 

 G. Saundersi with the best of the old Gandavensis type. 

 Some of these were recognized by the committee as an 

 advance upon old sorts. These Saundersi hybrids could 

 readily be distinguished by the much more open and larger 

 flowers, the recurving lateral sepals and downward ten- 

 dency of the upper sepal, which characterizes in a marked 

 way the typical species. The color also is, as a rule, more 

 intensely scarlet, with a paler centre. The sorts certificated 

 were named Kate'ilose, pale rose tint, penciled with crim- 

 son ; Brantford, intensely deep crimson, the darkest tint 

 yet seen ; Dalops, deep crimson flaked with a deeper hue. 

 Other extremely fine sorts were Opiter, Gildo, Croesus, 

 Ollius and Dunora. There is certainly not another class 

 in the whole range of cultivated plants that can make so 

 brilliant a display as Gladioli. It is to be regretted that 

 they are so capricious under cultivation and can only be 

 grown to perfection where the conditions exactly suit them 



