February 



•] 



Garden and Forest. 



53 



studying the plants of this genus in a satisfactory manner 

 is also increased by the fact that the staminate and pistil- 

 late flowers are often produced on different plants, al- 

 though the entire separation of the sexes does not appear 

 to be as common as has lieen usually supposed. 



The coast region from southern New Jersey to Florida is 

 the home of the greatest number of species in the United 

 States, although several extend into southern New England, 

 and two of them far north. Of the value of the North 

 American species of Smila.v as garden-plants as little is 



a less vigorous plant than the Greenbrier, with pale ovate 

 leaves, glaucous on the lower surface and slenderer, and 

 less terribly armed branches, and Smilax Pseudo-China. 



This last (see Fig. lo), which, is an old inhabitant of the 

 Arboretum, where it has become thoroughly established, is 

 a vigorous plant, rather common in dry or sandy soil in all 

 the region from New Jersey to Missouri and Florida. It 

 produces from tuberous root-stocks stout branches, which 

 climb five or six feet high, and which are sometimes un- 

 armed, and sometimes furnished with occasional weak' 



Fig. lo, — Smilax Pseudo-Cluna. — See page 52. 



known as of their life-history. Some of the species grow 

 rampantly and produce handsome foliage and brilliant 

 black or bright red fruit, and there are many places in the 

 garden where they can be used with good effect. Three 

 species only are well established in the Arboretum ; these 

 are the familiar Greenbrier or BuUbrier (Smilax rotundi- 

 folia), in all the northern states an inhabitant of moist 

 thickets, which it often makes impenetrable by its climbing 

 well-armed branches clothed with lustrous, broad, heart- 

 shaped leaves— this is one of the most beautiful plants of 

 its class, and one of the best to use to protect a boundary 

 plantation from intrusion ; the glaucous Smilax (S. glauca), 



prickles. The leaves are deciduous, ovate, heart-shaped, 

 sharp-pointed, three or four inches long, two or three 

 inches broad, prominently five-ribbed, dark green on the 

 upper and paler on the lower surface ; they are borne on 

 slender petioles from a half to two-thirds of an inch long, 

 or two or three times shorter than the flattened stems of the 

 flower-heads. The flowers, like those of the other mem- 

 bers of the genus, are greenish yellow, and individually 

 quite inconspicuous ; they are described as dioecious, but 

 a plant in the Arboretum, where for a long time there was 

 only one individual, has produced crops of fruit every year, 

 and the seeds of this fruit have produced plants. The fruit 



