5i6 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 409. 



sticks, although it is something like fifteen years since they 

 were set out. On the other hand, those trees planted on the 

 west side of Lafayette Square and on Peirce Street are ideal 

 specimens, owing to the fact that they have been shaped on 

 ■ several occasions. 



The Silver Maple does not last in a healthy condition for 

 more than sixteen years as a sidewalk-tree in Washington. As 

 the natural soil is not of the best, when the holes are dug the 

 soil taken out is carted away and new and better material takes 

 its place. This keeps the tree in good health for several years, 

 but when it gets beyond certain dimensions it, of course, be- 

 gins to show signs of starvation in the losing of the lower 

 branches and ripening great quantities of seed annually. The 

 only way in which the life of the tree is prolonged for a few 

 years is by cutting it severely in to the main stem. This is 

 done in the early spring months, and before summer is over 

 the tree is pretty well furnished with a profusion of fresh 

 growths. 



Botanic Garden, Wasliinglon, D. C. G. IV. O. 



Notes froiTi the Harvard Botanic Garden. 



THE genus Urceolina, although a small one, has three inter- 

 esting species. They are bulbous plants which belong to 

 the Amaryllis family, and are found in the Andes. For the 

 last two or three weeks some flowering plants of U. pendula, 

 the drooping-urn flower, have been very much admired by 

 visitors to the garden. These plants are scarce in gardens 

 from some cause or other, and yet they are easy to grow and 

 flower freely here every year. The bulbs measure about three 

 inches across, and during the growing season they have one or 

 two leaves. These are dark green, oblong, and contracted into 

 the petioles and measure from ten lo twelve inches in length 

 and two or three inches at the broadest part. At the ape.x of 

 an erect scape, which is about a foot and a half high, the pen- 

 dulous flowers are produced in umbels, those on the plants 

 here having from six to eight flowers, and the filiform pedun- 

 cles are nearly two inches long. Just above the ovary the 

 perianth is contracted and then enlarged into an oblong, tubu- 

 lar, urceolate throat, and the lobes are spreading at the apex. 

 The showy part of the flower is the enlarged part of the perianth, 

 which 'is nearly two-thirds of its length, and itisof a rich golden 

 yellow color. The spreading lobes are green and margined 

 with white. When the plants are in bloom they are without 

 foliage, but the pots can be placed among groups of Adiantum 

 cuneatum, where the flowers last for several weeks and make 

 a pleasing show above the dark green fronds of the Ferns. 

 After the plants have flowered they may be placed in an inter- 

 mediate house and in a position where Ihey will be kept dry. 

 Just before growth begins in spring the bullis should be taken 

 out of the pots and the exhausted soil carefully removed. Then 

 they may be replaced, one bulb in a five-inch pot, using clean 

 pots, plenty of drainage and a light, porous, rich soil, with the 

 top of the bulb level with the soil. After they are potted the 

 plants are placed in the stove, where they are kept dry until 

 growth begins, when they are supplied freely with water. 

 When the leaves have done their work and begin to turn yel- 

 low in early autumn, water should be given sparingly and 

 finally withheld altogether. The flower-scapes begin to push 

 up a few weeks after the leaves disappear. This plant is inter- 

 esting botanically, as it is one of the parents of Urceocharis 

 Clibrani, a hybrid, the other parent being the well-known 

 Eucharis Amazonica. 



Piqueria trinervia is a very common plant in gardens, where 

 it is known almost universally as Stevia serrata. It is a useful 

 plant, as it comes into flower just after the Chrysanthemums, 

 and its light airy branches, with their wliite flower-heads, are 

 very serviceable for cutting, and they last well. The plants 

 branch freely, and the stems, which are three feet high or 

 more, are thickly clad with opposite, oblong lanceolate, dark 

 green leaves, which are subserrate and have three prominent 

 nerves. The white flower-heads are produced very freely, 

 and are disposed in loose corymbose, many-headed panicles. 

 There is a dwarf form of this plant which makes compact 

 dwarf bushes about eighteen inches high. This dwarf form 

 we find most useful here, as the plants are more decorative 

 and make more compact specmiens. When the plants have 

 finished fjlossommg, which happens some time after Christ- 

 mas, the old ones are discarded, except one or two, which are 

 kept for stock-plants. Cuttings are struck in March, and after 

 they are well-rooted they are put into small pots, where they 

 are kept until time for planting out in the garden in May. They 

 grow fast in the garden, and the young points of the branches 

 should be picked out regularly, as it makes the plants bushy. 

 About the end of August they are lifted and potted again. 



They require careful handling in lifting, as the stems are very 

 brittle and are apt to get broken. When cool weather sets in 

 they are put in a cool greenhouse. This plant is figured in 

 The Botanical Magazine, and has been cultivated as long ago 

 as 1798, when if was introduced from Mexico. There is 

 another form of this plant grown in gardens with white-edged 

 leaves which is useful as a bedding-plant. 



Uolanic Garden, Harvard University. 



R. Cameron. 



The Eranthemums. 



npHE Eranthemums are remarkaljle for the beauty of their 

 -'■ foliage and will probably prove vahiable as bedding plants. 

 In Europe they are considered quite tropical in nature, as some 

 of them undoubtedly are, and in the damp English climate or 

 in the colder countries of northern Europe they could probably 

 not be used out-of-doors. But here, where the conditions are 

 so different, where plants like the Acalyphas will do well in the 

 open border, Eranthemums may Ije used with equal success. 

 Their foliage is not as large as that of the Acalyphas, or as 

 highly colored as that of Coleus, but they belong to a more 

 refined type of plants, noble in outline, with soft, harmonious 

 coloring. 



The principal kinds coming under consideration as bedding 

 plants are the strong, erect-growing forms that develop quickly 

 and areas easily increased as Coleus. Eranthemumalbo-margl- 

 natum, with long lanceolate-acuminate leaves of a grayish 

 green color, mottled and margined with milky white, grows to 

 a height of two or three feet. The leaves are opposite, eight or 

 ten inches long, under greenhouse treatment. E. nerium rub- 

 rum, with rounded-ovate leaves of the same color as the pre- 

 ceding one, slightly whiter. E. Eldorado, with almost cordate 

 leaves and an obtuse apex, green, reticulated with bright yel- 

 low. In E. atropurpureum the leaves are of a deep maroon 

 color, or sometimes nearly black, of the same shape as those 

 of E. Eldorado. 



The soil best adapted to Eranthemums is a rich vegetable 

 one. A bed of any ordinary garden soil, enriched with plenty 

 of well-decayed horse-manure and some rotten leaves, would an- 

 swer the purpose very well. The Eranthemums are generally 

 grown in warm greenhouses in partial shade. As indoor plants, 

 singly in pots, they are very ornamental, as well as easy of cul- 

 ture. Soft-wooded cuttings, when inserted in a slight bottom- 

 heat, will root in three or four days. When used as house- 

 plants, or by florists for decorative purposes, the plants should 

 always be kept young and bushy, with as luxuriant foliage as 

 possible. ,, As young plants are easily grown from cuttings old 

 and stunted ones need not be kept. ^t ^ r, 



Newark, N.J. A/. J.hose. 



Hybrid Perpetual Roses. 



AFTER the Chrysanthemum season is past there is gener- 

 ally space in the greenhouses for other plants that have 

 been stored in cold frames or other convenient places, and we 

 now place the first lots of hybrid Roses in a warmth of forty- 

 five to fifty degrees to start them into gentle root-action. 

 There is not much gain by putting them in early. December 

 is a good time if flowers are wanted in March, and it seems 

 impossible to have good hybrids too early. We plant in deep 

 boxes in preference to pots. The plants remain in the boxes 

 during the whole year and there is no check to them at any 

 time. The only time when the roots are disturbed is when 

 the boxes decay. New soil should be added and a slight top- 

 dressing given each spring after the plants are well started. 

 This treatment, with liberal supplies of stimulants in a liquid 

 form, will sustain the plants in vigor. 



No hybrid Rose is so satisfactory for forcing as Ulrich Brun- 

 ner for crimson. The noble foliage is not equaled by that of 

 any other Rose, and it will stand the strain of early forcing for 

 an indefinite period. We have plants that have been grown 

 in this way for five successive years, and they are again in the 

 greenhouse as good as ever. Gustave Piganeau, a newer 

 kind, has proved weak, and it rarely makes strong enough 

 growth to warrant its early forcing. The same may be said 

 of Susantie Marie Rodocanachi, sent out to excel the Ulrich 

 Brunner. Thus far it has failed to equal the older sort ; the 

 color is brighter and the foliage good, but it has also a some- 

 what weak constitution. Marchioness of Londonderry is a 

 promising new early forcing variety ; it is as near to white in 

 color as hybrids come, there being just a tinge of flesh-pink in 

 the centre' of the blooms. The flowers are of the largest size, 

 on stout stems, with foliage of the same texture and deep color 

 as Ulrich Brunner, and it is also almost thornless. It seems 

 to be one of the most meritorious of new Roses and belongs 



