404 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 398. 



at Kew, the stems, less than a foot in height, being crowded 

 with elegant narrow leaves and bright red drooping flow- 

 ers. The semperflorens race is also valuable for summer 

 bedding. They keep dwarf and flower freely when grown 

 out-of-doors in full sunshine, and as there are now many 

 varieties they are sufficient in themselves to furnish a 

 " design." The best of those used at Kew are : rosea, with 

 pale blush-pink flowers ; Crimson Gem, with crimson- 

 purple tipped leaves and deep blood-red flowers ; and the 

 type which has glossy green leaves and bright red flowers. 

 They are raised from spring-struck cuttings. 

 London. W. Watson. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Rhus Michauxii. 



THIS extremely rare, little-known and long lost shrub, 

 was discovered at the end of the last century by the 

 French botanist Michaux, in western North Carolina, in 

 what is now Mecklenburg County. Later it was found by 

 Lyon in Nort"h Carolina in fruit, and in flower by Boikin, 

 and by Le Conte in Georgia ; and recently it has been 

 rediscovered by Mr. W. W. Ashe, of the Geological Sur- 

 vey of North Carolina, at Farmington, Davie County, in 

 western North Carolina ; and by Mr. F. B. Boynton and 

 Mr. F. L. Olmsted, Jr., it was introduced last summer 

 into Mr. Vanderbilt's Arboretum at Biltmore, whence 

 it has been sent to the Arnold Arboretum. By Messrs. 

 Boynton and Olmsted, who found three clumps of this 

 plant, with ripe fruit, Rhus Michauxii (see illustration 

 on page 405 of this issue) is described as a shrub with 

 erect stems from one to three feet in height, spreading 

 extensively by underground stolons. The stems are stout, 

 and, like the petioles, the lower surface of the leaflets and 

 the panicles of flowers and fruit are villose-pubescent. The 

 leaves are deciduous, from twelve to fourteen inches in 

 length, with about eleven leaflets ; these are oval or oblong, 

 acute, gradually narrowed or rounded and slightly cordate 

 at the base, coarsely crenately serrate, dark dull green on 

 the upper surface, which is pilose along the conspicuous 

 veins, pale on the lower surface, about two and a half inches 

 long, an inch and a half wide, and sessile or very short- 

 stalked, with the exception of the terminal leaflet, which is 

 borne on a winged petiolule three-quarters of an inch in 

 length. The panicles of flowers, which were collected by 

 both Boikin and Le Conte, are terminal, thyrsoid, nearly ses- 

 sile, about six inches long and nearly three inches broad. 

 The calyx is covered with cinereous tomentum and is divided 

 into oblong-triangular lobes, rather shorter than the oblong 

 rounded pale yellow petals. The fruit is nearly globose, 

 about an eighth of an inch in diameter, bright scarlet, and 

 clothed with close silky pubescence. 



The juices of Rhus Michauxii turn black in dr)'ing, like 

 those of several of the poisonous species of Rhus, and Pursh, 

 on the testimony of Lyon, who suffered seriously from it, 

 and Torrey and Gray describe the plant as exceedingly 

 poisonous, while Curtis denies its poisonous properties. 

 From my limited experience with a partly dried specimen 

 I am inclined to believe that it is the most poisonous of the 

 North American species. 



Five years before the publication of Rhus pumila in 

 Michaux's Flora the name was used by Meeburgh in 1798 

 {PI. Select. Icon. Pict., t. 14) for another plant, which is 

 probably not a Rhus at all, so that the name is not avail- 

 able for Michaux's plant, for which I propose the name of 

 its discoverer. C. S. S. 



T 



Plant Notes. 



The Viburnums. 

 WO weeks ago we spoke of the value of the Cranberry, 



Viburnum Opulus, as an ornamental plant. But it is 

 not more beautiful or valuable than many other species of 

 this genus, vi'hich is represented in North America by sev- 

 eral of the handsomest shrubs of our forest glades. 



Viburnum Lentago and Viburnum prunifolium, which 

 often grow to the size of small trees, are beautiful with 

 their lustrous leaves, their broad flat clusters of flowers and 

 brilliant fruit ; this in ripening changes from green to pink 

 and then to a deep blue, berries of these three colors being 

 often seen together in the same cluster. These are both 

 hardy, fast-growing, vigorous and attractive plants, equally 

 well suited to decorate a lawn or the margin of a wood. 



Viburnum cassinoides and Viburnum nudum, the first 

 from northern and the second from southern swamps, are 

 as beautiful in cultivation as any shrubs we are acquainted 

 with. They both have thick opaque lustrous leaves, large 

 clusters of pale yellow flowers and fruit, which in ripening 

 turns bright pink and then deep blue. Viburnum dentatum 

 and Viburnum IMolle are vigorous plants with large, coarsely 

 serrate, lustrous, membranaceous leaves and small bright 

 blue fruit, which does not turn pink in ripening. 



Viburnum acerifolium is a comparatively dwarf shrub 

 with slender branches, three-lobed and three-ribbed leaves, 

 in form not unlike those of some varieties of the Scarlet 

 Maple, small clusters of flowers and dark blue or nearly 

 black fruit. From the decorative point of view, its great- 

 est value is found in its neat habit and the purple and 

 dark red colors of its autumn foliage. Viburnum pu- 

 bescens is a smaller and rarer plant than any of those we 

 have already mentioned. It is distinguished for its excel- 

 lent habit and the peculiar deep purple color its leaves 

 assume late in the autumn. This autumn coloring of the 

 leaves is the chief attraction of this Viburnum, but this is 

 so great that it should find a place in every collection. 



The most beautiful, perhaps, of all our Viburnums, the 

 Hobble-bush, Viburnum lantanoides, is the only species 

 that it is difficult to accustom to the conditions and sur- 

 roundings of the garden. Like Viburnum Opulus, it pro- 

 duces large marginal, sterile white flowers surrounding the 

 clusters of small fertile blossoms, but these sterile flowers 

 are larger than those of the Cranberry-bush, and the whole 

 inflorescence is larger and more beautiful. The large 

 rounded leaves of the Hobble-bush are very handsome, 

 and those of no other plant assume a more brilliant scarlet 

 color in autumn. The fruit in ripening is bright red, but 

 finally turns dark blue-black. 



These are all species of eastern America, common inhab- 

 itants of the forest and the borders of swamps, fields and 

 highways; but in the old world are several Viburnums 

 that are hardly less beautiful than our American species. 

 The Wayfaring-tree, Viburnum Lantana, of Europe, is one 

 of the best foreign shrubs that have been transplanted into 

 our shrubberies. The foliage is bold, vigorous and deep- 

 colored. The flowers are produced in profusion, and the 

 fruit, which is black and lustrous when fully ripe, at one 

 time in the summer is bright red. Japan has already con- 

 tributed to our gardens Viburnum tomentosum, Viburnum 

 Sieboldii and Viburnum dilatatum — all decorative plants of 

 the first class ; but in Japan are several other Viburnums 

 which will probably prove as desirable ornaments to our 

 gardens as any of these. Among them are Viburnum fur- 

 catum, the Japanese representative of our Hobble-bush, 

 although a larger and more beautiful plant, common in 

 the forests of Hokkaido, and the scarlet-fruited Viburnum 

 Wrightii, a shrub which reminds Americans that their com- 

 patriot, Charles Wright, collected plants on the shores of 

 Volcano Ba}^ as well as on the deserts of our south-western 

 boundary. 



Several other Asiatic species now known to science, but 

 not yet introduced into our gardens, may be expected to 

 add variety and charm to northern shrubberies, but consid- 

 ering only the common and well-known species, and tak- 

 ing them altogether, the Viburnums form, perhaps, the most 

 satisfactory group of the deciduous-leaved shrubs of our 

 northern gardens. They are perfectly hardy ; they are 

 easily raised from seed and easdy transplanted ; they are 

 exceptionally free from disease and the attacks of insects ; 

 they grow rapidly into shapely bushes, producing their 

 flowers and fruit profusely, and in autumn the foliage of 



