376 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 395. 



beckia speciosa, which grows to a height of two or three 

 feet and bears flowers three inches across, is especially good. 

 R. laciniata is one of the taller kinds and is quite desirable. 



BiLLBERGi.\ RHODo-cYANEA. — Maiiy plants belonging to the 

 Bromeliaceas are e.xquisitely beautiful, but few or none of 

 them e.xcel this rare free-flowering species. Side by side 

 with some of the most beautiful Orchids it easily holds its 

 own. The harmonious combination of its delicate tints, 

 its bold habit, its regular and finely marked foliage, render 

 it a thing of real beauty. The flowers are two inches long 

 in close, bracted heads, clear-blue in the bud, and lilac when 

 open. The petals are twice as long as the delicately rose- 

 colcjred sepals ; the style and anthers white ; the lanceo- 

 late bracts, with recurved spiny edges, about two inches 

 and a half long, beautifully rose-colored ; the peduncle 

 ten to twelve inches high, green, and clothed with whitish 

 wool ; the leaves eight to ten in a rosette, broad. Ungulate, 

 with a sharp spiny point, edged on the upper half 

 with black spines, and on the lower half suffused with 

 blackish purple, and on the outside transversely lined 

 and spotted with white puberulent markings. This spe- 

 cies, like all Bilibergias. grows well in a compost of 

 fibrous peat and sphagnum in wooden baskets or well- 

 drained pots. Frequent watering with liquid-manure helps 

 the grovi'th, and pieces of cow-manure in the compost 

 are almost equally good. The soil should be kept con- 

 stantly moist, and frequent syringings are needed in sum- 

 mer. After flowering, the growth generally dies more or 

 less slowly ; it may keep beautiful for some time after, but 

 never increases in size. At the base of the growth, which, 

 after flowering and fruiting, has fulfilled its purpose, sev- 

 eral young growths appear and soon develop to normal 

 size if the root is healthy ; these may be taken off and used 

 for propagation. They should be potted in the usual com- 

 post, kept warm and shady ami moderately watered. 

 Partial shade is always necessary, and from seventy to 

 eighty degrees, Fahrenheit, is a suitable temperature. 



Hibiscus Cooperii tricolor. — While the typical Hibiscus 

 Cooperii sometimes loses the mottled color of its leaves, 

 which gives the plant its ornamental value, this highly 

 colored variety is quite constant and also more beautiful 

 both in habit and in color. The leaves are ovate-lanceo- 

 late, with irregularly and coarsely serrated edges. The 

 color is very vivid, especially in the young leaves, dull 

 green, splashed with pure white, and edged with crimson. 

 The habit is very neat and compact, and if well grown 

 there are few better plants for table decoration. It is 

 propagated by cuttings, like ordinary forms of Hibiscus 

 rosa-sinensis. The soil, to develop the highest possible 

 color, should be very rich and the position a sunny one. 

 During the summer watering should be abundant, while a 

 partial rest during winter is beneficial. Young, not too 

 large, plants are the best in every way. 



Thu.n'bergia (Meyenia) erecta. — This very floriferous, 

 ever-blooming Thunbergia is not a climber, as are most 

 other species. It is a stiff, erect-growing shrub, said to 

 attain a height of six or more feet in its native country. 

 The opposite ovate-lanceolate leaves are two to three inches 

 long. The flowers are borne singly from the axils of the 

 leaves and are about three inches long, with an inflated, 

 curved tube and five large orbicular segments of equal size. 

 The corolla is fully an inch and a half across, and the calyx 

 consists of ten to twelve acicular segments half an inch 

 long, and the two-leaved epicalyx larger than the calyx 

 and enclosing it. The color is a deep bluish purple, with 

 an orange throat. Plants will flower quite freely, even 

 when only a few inches high. Ordinary greenhouse treat- 

 ment is sufficient. This is a promising plant for window- 

 gardening where a bright and airy position can be had. 



SoLANUM azureum. — Though nearly related to Solanum 

 jasminoides, this plant is quite distinct in the color of its 

 sky-blue flowers and in the shape of its leaves. It might, 

 perhaps, be considered only a form of that well-known 

 species in which the leaves and panicles of flowers are con- 

 siderably smaller. The leaves of the plant are pinnately 



divided, with from five to seven, rarely nine, ovate seg- 

 ments. The loose, subaxillary panicles produce from 

 twenty to thirty blue flowers with large yellow anthers. 

 The leafy, slender stems grow to a considerable length and 

 are of a bluish-green color. Like S. jasminoides, this plant 

 is a very profuse bloomer and will do well under the same 

 treatment. Side by side the two make a pleasing contrast, 

 and both are well adapted to growing in vases, as well as 

 on trellises and verandas, during the summer months. 



Cultural Department. 



Native Composites. 

 ■\1 rHILE it is true that exotic plants are generally most ap- 

 * * predated in gardens, tliis is not always because they are 

 more beautiful than native llowers. Tliat the latter are not _ 

 more commonly grown is often owing to the attempt to col- 

 lect the supposedly rarer foreign plants and to the prevailing 

 lack ot observation which causes us to overlook the good 

 points of our wildlings. The reaction of the last few years in 

 the direction ot greater simplicity and naturalness has had the 

 happy elfect of introducing many yellow native composites 

 into cultivation. Many gardens are now rich with Sunflowers, 

 the best ot vvhicli are unexcelled at this season as showy, 

 attractive objects. Tliese, with the yellow Cone flowers and 

 Silphiums, make a large class of invaluable plants to brighten 

 up the garden at this season. But there is another group of 

 plants whose merits are slightly appreciated in our gardens as 

 yet, although they are typical American plants over which con- 

 siderable glamour of sentiment and poetry has been thrown. 

 The Asters or Starworts, while not flaunting and showy as the 

 Sunflowers, are highly ornamental and desirable in the less 

 formal parts of the garden. While Asters are perfectly hardy 

 and will apparently exist under almost any conditions, they 

 repay even a little care, and improve amazingly under cultiva- 

 tion, forming usually thrifty bushes covered with a multitude of 

 stardike flowers, a condition in which they are seldom seen in 

 the fields. As is well known, there are many species of 

 Asters. They are difficult plants to determine botanically, and 

 as they cross freely, outside ot a few well-defined forms it is 

 not easy to know the various kinds. The nomenclature is 

 consequently much confused — at least, in gardens. Professor. 

 Gray made the subject liis own, and cleared up many difficul- 

 ties, but since his death there seems to be no recognized 

 authority except liis herbarium specimens. These flowers 

 have long been great favorites in English gardens, and the 

 names had become so confused that a few years since an en- 

 deavor was made to clear the nomenclature by growing speci- 

 mens of all available kinds in the Chiswick garden of the _ 

 Royal Horticultural Society. The plants were studied by bot- 

 anists and gardeners, the species separated from the hybrids, 

 and all determined and named according to the best knowl- 

 edge available. I do not know of any large or nearly com- 

 plete collection in the United States. It one had the space for 

 them they would offer a most attractive field for collection and 

 cultivation, and one would, besides, be doing a public service. 

 Such a contract is entirely too large for my small garden, 

 though I have two dozen kinds named at Chiswick, as a 

 nucleus of what was intended to be a complete collection for 

 comparison. However, if one only desired a few kinds for 

 ornaments, a collection of a dozen kinds would be sufficient. 

 Aster encoides has hundreds ot small white flowers. Medium 

 white flowers may be found in forms ot A. Novi-Belgii and A. 

 versicolor, the latter changing to light mauve. But none of 

 the medium-sized white-flowered Asters are as handsome and 

 pure in color as those of the allied Boltonia. At Mr. Manda's 

 the other day Boltonia asteroides, growing in a group of Asters, 

 stood out boldly and distinctly among the other plants, and the 

 purity of color was noticeable at a great distance. A. longifo- 

 iiiis Lady Trevilyan, is the best large-flowered white Aster. 



The best lavender or mauve colored kinds are forms of 

 Aster kevis. Of the darker kinds our dark purple A. Novas- 

 Anglias is too common to need description. The rose-colored 

 forms, however, are much handsomer, A. roseus having 

 flowers of equal diameter with fewer rays of a clear rosy shade. 

 A. ruber is a smaller flower with numerous rays and of a 

 darker rose shade. 



There is a great difference in the habits of the different 

 Asters, some being sparingly branched and some densely fur- 

 nished ; some are dwarf, others very tall. Tliere also is a dif- 

 ference in the closing habit of the flowers. A. Novag-Anglise 

 seems to close the earliest and closest in the evening, and 

 some ot the others do not close at all. ^ ,, ^ 



Eiizabeili, N. J. J- N. Gerard. 



