lOO 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 210. 



veiled in violet gauzes ? For Earth herself in her seductive 

 moods loves to confound the realist, and to force him to lift 

 his microscopic eye to behold her splendors with a vision too 

 dazzled to dwell upon the scars and wounds man makes upon 

 her noble bosom. 



In that breadth of vision which e,\cludes detail, in that ele- 

 vation of view which reveals the type and not the individual, 

 the grand sweep of the hills, and not their gravel-pits and 

 quarries, the mighty mass of the forest, and not its unsightly 

 clearings and half-dead trees, can Nature's highest beauty 

 alone be revealed, and her loftiest aspects brought to light. 



This is truth poetized, not the every-day appearance of a 

 prospect, but that vision which, under rare conditions, comes 

 to reveal to man the higher loveliness oftenest hidden from 

 view, but none the less a true perception for him who has the 

 power to sing his song, or paint his picture with the notes or 

 color drawn from the inspiration of a fleeting moment, which 

 he has the gift to make permanent. 



Thus that November afternoon the Middlesex Fells became 

 an enchanted region of pale sunlight and shadow, such as we 

 might seek in vain to find on another occasion. Not always 

 can it be bathed in such misty tints, or brightened with such 

 mellow autumn hues as made its distances dreamy, and its 

 foregrounds rich for the group that were privileged to see 

 them in gala attire on that fortunate day. But as a possession 

 for the state it will ever have a serious value, this open, 

 breezy varied space of hill and valley, lake and woodland, 

 which it would be a misfortune to sacrifice to any purely utiU- 

 tarian idea. 



Its natural ruggedness renders it difficult for building, im- 

 possible for agriculture, so that it has been preserved in nat- 

 ural wildness and beauty for this very time, when the best 

 interests of the state demand that it should be made a reserve 

 that will add incalculably to the real value of the neighboring 

 towns, which can rejoice in its fine, health-giving opportuni- 

 ties, and gain new dignity from their neighborhood to so noble 

 a pleasure-ground. r. ti- 



Hingham, Mass. Af- C. JRobbltlS. 



Spring in West Virginia. 



THE advance-guard of spring reaches West Virginia early 

 in February, and we celebrate its arrival with a feast of 

 Water Cresses, which are as grateful to snow-wearied eyes as 

 to the palate. The birds know very well that spring is coming, 

 for in February the cardinal grosbeak whistles boldly on 

 every frost-free morning, and the bluebird takes you into his 

 confidence in his quiet fashion to say that the season of flowers 

 is really at hand. The shrubberies on this 19th day of February 

 are full of swelling buds, and even some insect life is discov- 

 erable here and there, and spider threads are seen thrown from 

 one limb to another. Very striking is a low clump of Honey 

 Locusts, the deep red spines of which make an effective con- 

 trast to the striped bark of the branches, a light gray on olive- 

 green and very smooth and satiny in texture. These curious 

 waves and markings are confined to the young growth and 

 are conspicuous now. Later on, in the exquisite delicacy of its 

 foHage, the red leaflets matching the thorns in color, it will ri- 

 val any of the greenhouse Acacias. The Hypericums are 

 already leafing out and H. aureum is fairly covered with its 

 stiff linear leaflets, dark green with red and orange tints on the 

 latest comers. 



Wall-flowers are in bud, bulbs are peeping through the 

 ground, some of the early Hyacinths which stand in a shel- 

 tered nook are already well advanced. Spiraea prunifolia 

 shows many tiny leaves, while S. Thunbergii is covered with 

 knobby flower-buds, as are some of the Cydonias, while others 

 show a few blood-red leaves just starting, and they are almost 

 as pretty as the blossoms. Caragana altagana shows a green 

 rosette here and there, and is only waiting for two or three 

 warm, sunny days to open more of its curious leaf-buds, 

 which look like little blotches of green paint scattered over 

 the branchlets. Among the flowers. Crocuses are following 

 the Snowdrops, and Chionodoxas are hard after them, with the 

 earliest Jonquils, Daffodils, Violets and the lesser Periwinkle 

 almost in sight. These modest blossoms are the ones which 

 the flower-lover prizes above any of the later, more abundant 

 and more gorgeous blooms which the lavish month of May 

 brings with it. 



It is a good plan to have a space in the shrubberies devoted 

 to the March bloomers, some of which are found in very few 

 gardens. There is a very early-blooming Rhododendron, R. 

 Dauricum, that is not planted half as often as it should be. 

 Daphne Mezereum shows with us the first rosy bloom of the 

 year, the predominating color for early spring flowers seem- 

 ing to be yellow, purple and white. Daphne Genkwa is a 



charming plant of slow growth and fragrant violet-colored 

 flowers, and probably the sweetest shrub that blooms in 

 March. Then there is the Leather-wood (Dirca palustris), 

 which grows wild in our woods, displaying small yellow 

 bunches of flowers about the time that the Marsh Marigolds 

 brighten the forest-pools with their gold. This shrub is 

 offered by some nurserymen, and it is of easy cultivation 

 away from its native habitat. Jasminum nudiflorum is a 

 graceful shrub of early bloom, and cheerful in spite of its 

 weeping habit. It is deservedly a favorite with designers of 

 parks, and is much used about the public buildings in Wash- 

 ington, where it celebrates Easter Sunday after a sunny 

 fashion peculiar to itself. Prunus spinosa and P. Pissardi 

 bloom here late in March and are rather earlier than the 

 Forsythias. 



In the wild garden the Blood-root, Saxifrage and Twin Leaf 

 will bloom as the earliest Fern-fronds are unrolling, and they 

 are quickly followed by Hepaticas, in their woolly overcoats, 

 the first Anemones and the fragrant Epigsea, which some 

 people are able to coax into forgetting its native haunts and 

 blooming in civilized gardens. On the very first of February, 

 which was a genial day, we found reddish brown barren cat- 

 kins two inches long, and tiny unopened pistillate flowers on 

 our Japanese Alder, and these gave as keen pleasure as the 

 bloom of a favorite Rose-tree in June. These catkins are far 

 in advance of all the flowers of our other trees. Scarlet Maples, 

 Aspens, Willows and Hazels are growing more interesting as 

 the days lengthen, but to this Alder belongs the glory of being 

 the first tree to bloom in spring. 



Every day we watch the earliest bloomers among the shrubs 

 for signs of growth. Xanthocerus sorbifolia, which the 

 youngest member of the family will call rhinoceros, receives 

 much attention. It has not blooined yet, being, indeed, only 

 eighteen inches high, and it is not likely that it will gratify our 

 curiosity for another year, but it is said to produce blossoms 

 when very small. Chimonanthus fragrans is also of much 

 interest, as it has never been seen in bloom here. The red- 

 branched Cornels, the yellow-stemmed Forsythias, the green 

 twigs of Scotch Broom and the Japanese Corchorus are also 

 attractive, and the bark grows brighter on them all as the buds 

 begin to swell. Lonicera sempervirens was the first of all our 

 plants to show the tender green of its spring foliage. 



Rose Brake, West Va. Datiske Datldridge. 



Plant Notes. 



Some Recent Portraits. 



The February issue of the Botanical Magazine contains 

 portraits of the great Javanese Primula Imperialis (t. 7217), 

 a noble species, producing immense leaves and tall scapes, 

 with many whorls of orange-colored flowers. 



Hydnophytum Forbesii (t. 7218), a representative of the 

 wonderful group of epiphytic plants, peculiar in their tuber- 

 ous root-stalks, which form nests for certain species of ants. 

 There are two principal genera of these plants, natives of 

 the Malayan and Pacific coasts and islands, both belong- 

 ing to Rubiacese, and closely allied one to the other. They 

 are Myrmecodia, with eighteen species, and Hydrophytum 

 with thirty, and they were mostly discovered by the dis- 

 tinguished Italian botanist Beccari, who has bestowed 

 upon this group the appropriate name of Piante ospitratice. 

 The tuberous rhizome of Hydnophytum Forbesii is lobed, 

 echinate, and produces short stems with subsessile, obo- 

 vate, obtuse leaves, and a.xillary, short-stemmed flowers 

 with a short calyx and an elongated, graceful, cylindrical, 

 white corolla. The fruit is elipsoidal, bright red, dru- 

 paceous, slightly compressed and two-lobed at the apex. 

 Hydnophytum Forbesii, which is certainly one of the most 

 curious and interesting plants recently introduced into cul- 

 tivation, was discovered in New Guinea by Mr. Forbes, 

 author of A Nahiralist s Wanderi^igs in the Eastern Archipel- 

 ago, who, in 1886, sent it to the Royal Gardens at Kew, 

 where it flowered three years later, and again last year. 



Begonia glaucophylla (t. 7219), a plant now well known 

 in gardens, but of unknown origin and history, and pos- 

 sibly a h)'^brid. 



Vicia Narbonensis (t. 7220), a native of eastern Europe 

 and western Asia, and chiefly interesting for the fact that 

 it has been supposed to be the original form of the common 



