396 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 397 



Plant Notes. 



Acer Pennsylvanicum. — The Striped Maple is one of our 

 common small trees in the interior and mountainous parts 

 of the Atlantic States, growing as far south as Georgia, 

 and reaching its .largest size on the Blue Ridge in the 

 Carolinas and on the Big Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, 

 where it is sometimes fort)^ feet high, with a short stout 

 trunk ten inches in diameter. Generally it is a much 

 smaller tree, and often is little more than a large shrub. 

 It derives its common name of Striped Maple from the 

 pale or bluish white longitudinal striations on its reddish 

 brown or green smooth bark, and we have no other hardy 

 tree whose stems and branches are more delicately hand- 

 some, for, although some other Maples have more brightly 

 colored branchlets, they lack its peculiar beauty of the 

 main stem and large limbs. We rarely see good speci- 

 mens in parks or private grounds, for it has been too much 

 neglected by planters, but, vi'hen well grown, this Maple 

 has a singularly neat habit, with light green summer 

 foliage, attractive bud-scales and young leaves in early 

 spring, and clear yellow leaves in autumn. The flowers, 

 too, are graceful, hanging in long, drooping racemes. 

 Altogether, it is an admirable tree for planting, like so 

 many other of the smaller trees in our forest flora. The 

 tree is also called the Moose Wood, because the deer 

 l)rowse in early spring on its young shoots, when they are 

 filled with a sugary sap. Michaux found that when 

 grafted on the Scyamore Maple it grew to a much larger 

 size than when left on its own roots. The Japanese Acer 

 rufinerve, which has been cultivated to a considerable 

 e.\tent, is so closely akin to the Moose Wood, botanically, 

 that they can hardly be distinguished. Acer spicatum, 

 our Mountain Maple, is a still smaller tree of more bushy 

 habit, which we have often commended for large shrub- 

 beries. It is still more rarely grown than the Striped 

 Maple. Its upright racemes of flowers and its bright red 

 fruit m July are attractive features of this tree. 



Callicarpa purpurea. — This shrub is just beginning to 

 justify its generic name by the beauty of its clustered 

 berry-like drupes which appear in the axils of every leaf. 

 As seen in our parks just now, the branches, often three 

 feet in length, arch over almost to the ground under the 

 weight of violet-colored fruit, and this, together with its 

 clean light green foliage, makes the plant worth using 

 in parks or large places, wherever it is desirable to produce 

 special autumn effects. The flowers open in mid-August 

 here ; they are lilac-purple, but small and inconspicuous, 

 although rather interesting, on account of the time when 

 they appear. This shrub, which grows to a height of four 

 or five feet, is a native of Asia, but there is an American 

 species of the genus found from Virginia southward along 

 our coasts. It is not hardy as far north as New York, 

 but where it will thrive its violet-colored fruit is even more 

 handsome than that of its Asiatic relative. Callicarpa pur- 

 purea can be raised from seed, which is produced abun- 

 dantly, and it will grow in almost any soil and with the 

 simplest treatment. 



LiLiUM Henryi. — This Lily was sent by Dr. Henry to 

 Kew from China, where it flowered for the first time in 18S9, 

 and as soon as the plants became established it at once 

 took rank among the best of Lilies for the garden. Mr. 

 Nicholson wrote us, two years ago, that it would grow both 

 in peat and loam, although it appears to gain a greater 

 size when planted in loam. Mr. Orpet, who recently saw 

 it flowering in Kew, writes that in habit and vigor it equals 

 strong specimens of the Tiger Lily, and it has this Lily's 

 umbellate habit of flowering and does not branch in an 

 irregular way like L. speciosum. The flowers, hovi'ever, 

 resemble those of the latter species so closely in form that 

 it has been called the yellow speciosum. The color is 

 really apricot, with chocolate spots. Plants in the open 

 border at Kew are more than seven feet high, many of 

 them carrying thirty flower-buds each, and they presented 

 a magnificent spectacle about the end of August. It is to be 



presumed that this Lily has now reached the full size it will 

 attain at Kew, but when the bulbs are cheaper and have 

 become more widely disseminated and tried under differ- 

 ent conditions, it is possible that the plant will attain still 

 larger proportions. 



Cultural Department. 



Late-blooming Hardy Herbaceous Plants. — I. 



'"PHE value of liardy herbaceous perennials is most noticea- 

 -•• hie at this season, for, in spite of the loss of tender plants, 

 there is an abundance of hardy material to give an effec- 

 tive fall showing up to the time when the ground is frozen. 

 Many hardy plants are not affected to a noticeable degree by 

 frosts that would kill Geraniums. After two niglits of hard 

 frost that has killed all Squash and Tomato plants and has 

 rendered unprotected Geraniums past further use, although 

 no effects of the injury are seen in the foliage, the promise of 

 bloom among hardy plants is still bright. 



Achillea zEgyptica, A. millifolium, var. roseum, and A. ser- 

 rata, l^earl, are throwing up quite a show of second bloom, 

 and A. Eupatormm is displaying umbels of licli golden-yellow 

 flowers from four to five inches across. 



Alstromeria aurantiaca, the Peruvian Lily, still shows a 

 wealth of its showy clusters of rich yellow, chocolate-striped 

 flowers. Anchusa Italica, having been relieved of its seed- 

 vessels before ripening, is giving many branched spikes of 

 rich blue and white flowers resemblmg forget-me-nots. 

 Anemone Japonica is at its best in all its pink, rosy purple, 

 white and semidouble forms. Apios tuberosa, as a cultivated 

 plant, is still producing its richly tragrant clusters of chocolate 

 and red flowers. A smgle clump of Asclepias tuberosa (the 

 Pleurisy-root) has been in bloom since nnd-June, and shows 

 no sign of stopping. Asperula odorata has taken on a second 

 growth after the abundant rains, and there are enough flowers 

 opening to spread its characteristic fragrance about. 



Asters are in perfection, and these are some of the best : A. 

 Sibiricus, a dwarf narrow-leaved species not e-xceeding a foot 

 m height, forming a globular head covered with small clear 

 lavender, starry flowers ; A. longifolia, some three feet high, 

 with rich deep bluish purple ray-Howers and well-defined 

 bright yellow centres ; A. Chapmanii, forming a bush some 

 four feet high and quite as broad, with an open angular- 

 branched habit and a profusion of fine clear blue flowers ; A. 

 NovEE-Angliag, two to three feet in diameter, and just beginning 

 to display its rich purple flowers by the hundred ; its variety. 

 Rosea, with a welcome contrast of color in its clear rosy red 

 flowers while the varieties offered by the European nursery- 

 men under the names of William Bowman and Constance are 

 hardly distinguishable from the typical form ; A. specfabilis, a 

 splendid medium-growing species with broad, open. Hat heads 

 of large, rich, deep blue flowers ; A. mifitiflorus, displaying 

 myriads of nfinute white flowers in immense panicles ; A. 

 acris, just passed its season, but a plant not to be omitted from 

 any good list of Asters because of its compact upright habit, 

 being three to four feet high and not at all weedy, with clouds of 

 well-formed pure white flowers each an inch across ; A. 

 grandiflorus, now forming buds for later bloom, and, although 

 hard to grow into a specmien plant, its abundance of bloom so 

 very late in the season and its individual flower-heads, an inch 

 and a half across, of the richest deep blue color, give it great 

 value ; A. ptarmacoides, now past its best, after a brave show 

 of small pure white flowers in densely branched heads ; A. 

 Nov;:e-Belgii, var. Lady Trevilyan, now at its best, with im- 

 mense panicles of bloom often two feet and a half long and a 

 foot to fifteen inches in diameter, each composed of innumer- 

 able pure white starry flowers. 



I3oltonia l;itisquama is a veritable queen among the autumn- 

 blooming perennials, twelve-months-old clumps now giving 

 masses of bloom fully five feet through, composed literally of 

 myriads of rich clear lavender-pink flowers individually an 

 inch and a half to two inches in diameter, and each on a clean 

 wiry stem. Without e,xception, this can be given first place 

 among the September-blooming perennials ; the more com- 

 monly planted species, B. asteroides, with pure white flowers, 

 does not give such great wealth of bloom, and the flowers are 

 smaller, yet it is a showy plant. 



Callirrhoe involucrata, the Poppy-mallow, has not been out 

 of bloom since early June, and continues to throw out fresh 

 shoots and an abundance of rich velvety purple buds opening 

 to rich reddish purple, cup-shaped flowers an inch and a half 

 across. Catananche ccerulea, in all its forms of clear purple, 

 blue, purple and white and pure white flowers, has started 

 afresh, and Cedronella caua is in perfection with its long 



