December i8, 1895.] 



Garden and Forest. 



5<^5 



spray is as refined and delicate as that of the American 

 Beech. The leaves appear early in spring and are of a 

 light, cheerful green, turning to a clean uniform yellow in 

 autumn. The white, fragrant pea-shaped flowers hang in 

 panicles a foot or more in length, so that all the year through 

 it is one of the very best of what are known as lawn trees. 

 One objection to it is that when the limbs are weighted 



Fig. 69.— Branch of Pepper-tree, Schinus Molle, wilh berries.— See page 502. 



with ice in winter they sometimes break off or the trunk 

 splits apart. A fine specimen (figured on page 92 of vol. i.) 

 split at the fork some years ago, but the limbs were drawn 

 together and an iron rod bolted through them, and no trace 

 of the disaster now remains. It should he said, too, that 

 the tree only flowers abundantly on alternate years, al- 

 though there are some flovi'ers every year. 



Canna, John White. — The interest e.xcited by the intro- 

 duction of the dwarf French Canna, Madame Crozy, has 

 led to the raising and introduction of many new forms, 

 varying much in the size and color of the flowers and less 

 in the form.and color of the foliage. As the hybrids bear 

 seeds very freely, which are easily and quickly grown into 

 flowering plants, the natural result is a surfeit of named 

 and unnamed kinds, with flowers mostl)' 

 in shades of reds and yellows, or a mixture 

 of these colors. We have not had varie- 

 ties with very striking differences of foliage, 

 the leaves being usually of varying shades 

 of green, or with red or bronzy suffusions 

 of a rather dull character. Variegated 

 forms there have been, with more or less 

 white margins to the leaves, but these 

 markings have not been so effective as to 

 render the plants especially striking in the 

 garden. As usually happens when a 

 plant is harassed by cultivators, the Canna 

 seems to have taken a new departure 

 also. Among a lot of seedlings from the 

 best dwarf varieties grown by John White, 

 of Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1894, there 

 appeared a plant with a novel color in 

 the foliage, and this, carefully saved and 

 grown, has since been tested in the open 

 and under glass. The plant attains a 

 height of three feet, and the foliage is of 

 the ordinary type, but very curiously and 

 attractively colored. The young leaves 

 are of a pale yellow, with narrow margins 

 of dark red, and as they advance there ap- 

 pears some suffusion of light green, mostly 

 in spots or dashes. The leaves retain this 

 color till they gradually mature by losing 

 the yellow and gaining a deep suffusion of 

 pink with an admixture of green. The plant 

 in this condition is decidedly striking and 

 novel, the general color-effect being de- 

 cidedly pink. The plant is said to have 

 held its color perfectly under the sunlight 

 this season, and it would appear that we 

 have in this variety not only a new de- 

 parture, but a first-rate, showy foliage 

 plant for decorative effects in the garden. 

 The flowers are small, of a deep scarlet 

 and of no value, but the ovaries, which 

 are dark red, seem to be more persistent 

 and decorative than usual to this plant. 



Begonia acuminat.\. — This is another 

 valuable winter- flowering shrubby Be- 

 gonia. The leaves are not more than 

 two or two and a half inches long, very 

 thick and fleshy, with coarse hairy veins 

 and coarsely toothed. The color is a deep 

 olive-green, tinted red below. The flow- 

 ers measure over an inch across, generally 

 pale flesh-colored, but sometimes white. 

 In the female flowers the petals are nar- 

 row, ovate-acuminate ; in the male flow- 

 ers they are broader. The loose few- 

 flowered C3'mes are borne abundantly 

 from the axils of the upper leaves. The 

 stem is stout, erect and fleshy, growing to 

 a Sleight of a foot or more. The plant 

 is generally bushy and covered with a 

 profusion of flowers during the early win- 

 ter months. It is a West Indian species of great merit, but 

 not very common in cultivation at the present time. 



Imi'atiens Sultani violacea. — This very florifcrous plant, 

 like other varieties of this species, is an excellent winter- 

 flowering kind, easy of culture and satisfactory when well 

 grown. The flowers are fully an inch across and of a 

 roundish outline and bright rosy pink. There are numerous 



