October i6, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



415 



Plant Notes. 



PsEUDOLARix K.EMPFERi. — Tliis IS a tree which might safely 

 be planted in the northern states much more often than it 

 is. It is the only representative of a very peculiar genus, 

 with the habit of a Cedar, the foliage of a Larch and the 

 cones of a Fir. It is well called the Golden Larch, for it 

 looks to the unsophisticated observer more like a Larch 



-•.«w©^ 



No. 56. — Yucca Whipplei in Southern California. — See pai^e 414 



than any other tree, and in the autumn the leaves turn a 

 beautiful golden color before falling. This tree was first 

 made known to Europeans by Robert Fortune, who found 

 it in the gardens of a Buddhist monastery in the western 

 part of the Chinese province of Chikiang, where there were 

 trees from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and 

 thirty feet tall, with trunks two feet in diameter, free of 



branches for fifty feet above the ground. The original 

 home, however, of the Golden Larch was probably in some 

 colder region, for it flourishes in New England, where it is 

 not affected by the hottest or driest summers or the coldest 

 winters. It is as hardy as the Ginkgo, and, curiously, like 

 the Ginkgo, it is known only as a cultivated tree, and, so 

 far as we have been able to learn, no American or Euro- 

 pean has ever seen these two remarkable monotypic de- 

 ciduous-leaved conifers growing beyond 

 the limits of cultivated grounds. The 

 name of the remote mountain valley of 

 western China, Mongolia or Thibet, from 

 which the priests of Buddha brought these 

 two trees to ennoble their temple gardens, 

 is a secret that has been well guarded. A 

 region which can produce such trees can, 

 perhaps, produce other valuable plants, 

 and its discovery and exploration is well 

 worth the efforts of the enterprising and 

 ambitious collector of plants. Pseudolarix 

 Kficmpferi, which appears to grow more 

 satisfactorily in our northern states than 

 in Europe, has remained a rare tree, as it 

 has proved difficult to propagate by grafts, 

 and until recently seeds have been scarce. 

 Of late years, however, a tree in the nursery 

 of Rovelli Freres, at Palanza, on the shores 

 of Lake Majiore, has produced good crops 

 , of seeds ; and the specimen in ^Nlr. Hun- 



newell's Pinetum at Wellesley, Massachu- 

 setts, two years ago began to bear fertile 

 cones, from which seedlings have already 

 been raised. It may be expected, there- 

 fore, that this noble and beautiful tree may 

 soon become common enough to be within 

 reach of every one who wants to plant it. 

 The largest specimen in the LTnited .States 

 is growing on the grounds of the old 

 Parsons' Nursery at Flushing, Long Island. 

 This tree was bought in London at an 

 auction of plants offered by Fortune in 

 . '859, and it was then three feet high. 



It is now a broad-branched, handsome 

 specimen about fifty-five feet high, with 

 a trunk diameter of two feet, and its 

 branches cover an area fifty feet across. 

 This tree has also borne seeds. 



Citrus trifoli.\t.a. — This shrub or small 

 tree is reliably hardy as far north as Phila- 

 delphia, where it tets and ripens fruit with 

 tolerable regularit)'', and there are a num- 

 ber of good specimens near this city, one 

 of them in Central Park, but, so far as we 

 know, they bear no fruit. Mr. Oliver writes 

 that on the grounds of the Department of 

 Agriculture at Washington this year the 

 bushes are loaded with the small yellow 

 oranges, and make a very showy appear- 

 ance. These have been planted in their 

 present quarters some twelve or fifteen 

 years, and they average about fifteen feet 

 in height. As they get older they produce 

 fruit in greater profusion. The flowers 

 appear very early in the season ; so early, 

 in fact, that they are sometimes nipped 

 by late frosts. This Citrus, in a few years 

 after planting, forms an almost impene- 

 trable hedge, as it bears pruning wonderfull)- well. Each 

 fruit contains a number of seeds, which, if sown as soon as 

 gathered, will make plants ready for setting out within a 

 year. 



Hypericum adpressi.'m. — This herb, with slender rigid 

 stems, slightly woody at the base and about a foot tall, 

 spreads rapidly by underground stolons ; and a bit of the 



