98 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 210. 



Ever since the Yellowstone Park was created the 

 Secretaries of the Interior have had charge of it, and 

 superintendents and other officers have acted under their 

 authority. The successive Secretaries have given much 

 time and consideration to this territory, and the best friends 

 of the park have been satisfied with the care which it has 

 received from these officers. On the ist of February a bill 

 was introduced into the Senate for the alleged purpose of 

 incorporating the Yellowstone Park Company, but if 

 enacted it would practically operate to surrender the park 

 to four men, who are named in the bill, for twenty years, 

 with the privilege of renewing their power for twenty years 

 longer. The act is shrewdly drawn, so as to have an ap- 

 pearance of maintaining the rights of the park, while really 

 it gives this company povi^er to build hotels, to run cable- 

 cars, to quarry stone, to manufacture brick, to use timber 

 for building and fuel, and, in fact, to do what they please 

 without any restraining power whatever. Hitherto it has 

 been in the power of the Secretary of the Interior to grant 

 all leases and to make all contracts, and the only safety for 

 the park is to leave it under the care and authority of some 

 person in high official position like a member of the Cabi- 

 net. One can hardly conceive of a more impudent demand 

 than this one of four men for a monopoly of this immense 

 territory and all its resources. 



The first annual meeting of the New York Carnation So- 

 ciety, which was held at Buffalo on the i6th of February, 

 leads one to wish that similar societies might be formed and 

 similar meetings held by persons specially interested in the 

 cultivation of the Rose, the Chrysanthemum, the Dahlia 

 and other flowers. Advances in horticultural art have usu- 

 ally been made by students who devote themselves to 

 specialties of some kind. The general public are not 

 warmly interested in the development of so-called florists' 

 flowers — that is, flowers which are molded into a fixed 

 form, and which are not considered to have any merit un- 

 less they conform to some rigid outline decided upon by 

 a committee as to true and ideal form. But every lover of 

 flowers is interested in what patient and careful attention 

 will accomplish in the way of discovering the best methods 

 of cultivation, of hybridizing, of combating diseases, of 

 increasing vigor aiid prolonging the blooming season of 

 good plants. At this first meeting of the Carnation Society 

 there were discussions of the highest practical value about 

 the Carnation Rust, the alleged deterioration of varieties, 

 the best methods of propagation, and other equally impor- 

 tant topics. It is only through long-continued and special 

 study that we can learn the secrets of the growth of plants, 

 and every organization that tends to direct intelligent at- 

 tention to plants and their ways deserves the best wishes 

 of every one interested in horticulture. 



Notes on Nomenclature. 



QuERCUs Kelloggii, Newberry. — The oldest name applied 

 to this species is that of Torrey, Quercus tinctoria, var. Cali- 

 fornica, published in 1856 {Pad/. R. R. Report, iv. , 138), 

 here being considered only a variety of the eastern Quer- 

 citron Oak, and antedating the Q. Kelloggii of New- 

 berry {Pad/. R. R. Report, vi., 89, 28, f. 6 [1857]) by one 

 year. As no question now remains as to the specific dis- 

 tinctness of Kellogg's Oak from its eastern relative, there 

 appears to be no good reason for not following Cooper, 

 who was first to raise Torrey's name to specific rank 

 {Smithsonian Report for 1858, 261 [1859]), Q- Kel- 

 loggii, Newberry, would, therefore, become Q. Californica, 

 Cooper. 



It is perhaps to be regretted that the specific name, Kel- 

 loggii, can be no longer retained in honor of the one who 

 studied the Pacific Oaks so carefully ; it is certain, how- 

 ever, that as with the " Douglas Spruce " (Pseudotsuga 

 Douglasi becoming P. taxifolia), " Kellogg's Oak " should 

 always stand first as a vernacular name. 



Quercus tinctoria, Bartram. — Bartram's name for the 

 Quercitron Oak, although long maintained for this species, 

 seems nevertheless not to be legitimate, nor by any means 

 the oldest one applied to the tree. Aside, moreover, from 

 the fact that it is antedated by others, the name itself is 

 not even founded on a diagnosis of the species ; yet the 

 tendency among fair-minded botanists and zoologists to 

 interpret rather the intent of nomenclatural codes than to 

 adhere too rigidly to the literal meaning of a prescribed 

 law, would perhaps enable us to still retain tinctoria as a 

 specific name, although founded only on the following 

 statement : 



"Gigantic black Oak, Querc. tinctoria; the bark of this 

 species of Oak is found to afford a valuable yellow dye. 

 This tree is known by the name of Black Oak in Pennsyl- 

 vania, New Jersey, New York and New England. . . . 

 I can assert that many of the Black Oaks measure nine, 

 ten and eleven feet in- diameter five feet above ground" 

 (Bartram, Travels, p. 37 [1791]). Doubtless the large size 

 and production of a yellow dye, aided by a system of se- 

 clusion, points circumstantially to the Quercitron Oak. 



There are, though, cases in which the first name, simi- 

 larly established, has been discarded for a later one secured 

 by a strictly technical diagnosis ; so that those inclined to 

 follow the letter of the code may not complain if tinctoria 

 be set aside for an older if not the oldest name. 



The oldest name suspected to belong here is the Quercus 

 velutina of Lamarck {Encyd. Meth. Bot., i., 721), published 

 in 1789, two years previous to Bartram's Qtierciis tindoria 

 (1791). Koch {Dendrologie, ii , pt. 2, 68) took up La- 

 marck's name, but seems not to have been followed by 

 any subsequent writers. Professor Sargent questions the 

 validity of Quercus velutina, and cites it as a synonym of 

 Quercus tinctoria {Cat. For. Trees, 149). But while there 

 must always remain doubt in the identification of names in 

 the absence of good figures or specimens, there seems to 

 be as good reason for taking up Quercus velutina, Lamarck, 

 as for still retainingQuercusrubraof Linn^us. Of Quercus 

 velutina, Lamarck says, " Quercus foliis obovatis angulatis 

 subtus brevissime lanatis, angulis seta terminatis" (1. c); 

 of Quercus rubra, Linnaeus says, "Quercus foliis obtuse- 

 sinuatis setaceo-mucronatis " {Spec.,ed. 1,996). Certainl}'- 

 the foundation of Linnsus' name — wljich as the oldest no 

 one thinks of disturbing — can as well be questioned as the 

 propriety of establishing Lamarck's Quercus velutina, the 

 oldest name for the Quercitron. 



An older name also for this Oak than Bartram's Quercus 

 tinctoria (1791) is the Quercus discolor of Alton {Hortus 

 Kewensis, iii., 358), published in 1789. 



Quercus falcata, Michaux. — As already pointed out by 

 Professor Sargent (G4Rden and Forest, ii., 471), there are 

 two or three other names included in the synonomy of this 

 species which are much older than Michaux's Quercus fal- 

 cata (1801). Wangenheim's Quercus cuneata (1787) has, 

 however, been selected as the only authentic name to sup- 

 plant Michaux's Quercus falcata. Of the identity of Quer- 

 cus cuneata there can, of course, be no doubt, based as it 

 is on a figure of a well-known form of the plant. But be- 

 fore passing this point, it may be advisable, since the in- 

 convenience of a change must be made from Quercus 

 falcata, to inquire if there is not sufficient reason for taking 

 up Marshall's Quercus nigra digitata (1785), the oldest name 

 supposed to have been applied to the Spanish Oak. His 

 Quercus rubra Montana may also belong here, but occurs 

 later in the Arhustiim. Of the, two descriptions, the first 

 and the one under "Quercus nigra digitata "seems to be the 

 more suggestive of the species Marshall had in hand, and 

 under this caption, "Quercus nigra digitata — Finger-leaved 

 Black Oak," he says : 



"This grows naturally in low lands, rising to the height 

 of thirty or forty feet, with a trunk of considerable thick- 

 ness, covered with a rough blackish bark. The leaves are 

 sinuated, or divided toward their extremities into two or 

 three pretty long, somewhat finger-shaped, lobes of unequal 

 length, with others shorter, sometimes at the sides ; all of 



