March i6, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



121 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



rUBI.ISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Artici-fs :—Sereno Watson 121 



The Golden-le.ivcd Oak of California. (With figure.) 121 



Suitable Names for Country Places Mrs. % H. Robbins. 122 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — IX J. G. Jack. 123 



Notes in the Woods T. H. Hoskins, M.D. 125 



Cultural Dspartment : — Housetop Gardens E. P. Powell, 125 



Roses IV. H, Taplin. 126 



Bulbous Plants in Winter y. N. Gerard. 126 



Sowings: Beets and Radishes Professor IV. P\ Massey. 128 



Broditea (Triteleia) unifiora M. Barker. 128 



Crandall's Currant E. P. P. 128 



Okchid Notes : — Orchids at North Easton, Massachusetts A. Dimmock. 128 



Orchids in Flower in New York City D. 129 



Correspondence ; — A Small Conservatory yolin Chavtberlin. 129 



The Constitutional Health of Plants.— II A. IV. Pearson. 130 



The Danger of Delay in Acquiring Land for Public UsCj 



H. W. S. Cleveland. 131 

 Apples for the North-west George J. Kellogs:- 131 



Notes 131 



Illustration : — The Golden-leaved Oak (Quercus chrysolepis) on the high 



Sierra Nevada, Fig. 20 127 



Sereno Watson. 



SERENO WATSON, the Curator of the Herbarium of 

 Harvard College, a man of high character a:id sound 

 learning, and since the death of Asa Gray the foremost sys- 

 tematic botanist in America, died at his home in Cambridge 

 on the 9th instant after a long and painful illness. He was 

 born on the ist of December, 1826, at East Windsor Hill, 

 Connecticut, one of the youngest of a large family, and 

 graduated in 1847 from Yale College; then, having taught 

 school for several years in different states, he studied medi- 

 cine at the University of New York, and later, with an older 

 brother, established as a physician at Quincy, Illinois. He 

 practiced his profession for two years, and then aban- 

 doned it to become Secretary of the Planters' Insurance 

 Company of Greenboro', Alabama, a position which he 

 occupied from 1S56 to 1861. It was at this time that Mr. 

 Watson began seriously to study plants, although it was 

 not until seven years later, after a term in the Sheffield 

 Scientific School, that he became a professional bota- 

 nist. He vi'as in California in 1868, and sought and 

 obtained the position of botanist to the United States 

 Geological Expedition, which, under the leadership of 

 Clarence King, explored the territory in western America 

 adjacent to the fortieth parallel of latitude. He was en- 

 gaged in field-work principally in central Nevada and Utah 

 during the seasons of 1868 and 1869, and published in 1871, 

 with the aid of Professor Eaton, the results of his investi- 

 gations of the flora of the Great Basin, his report forming 

 the fifth volume of King's Report of the Geological Explora- 

 tion of the Fortieth Parallel. Watson was now invited by 

 Professor Gray to become his assistant at Cambridge, and 

 the remainder of his life has been devoted to the study of 

 the flora of North America and to the care and improve- 

 ment of the Gray Herbarium and Library. 



His publications since his connection with Harvard Col- 

 lege have been important : they consist of The Botany of 

 California, in connection with Professor Wm. H. Brewer 

 and several specialists ; of eighteen numbers of Cotitribu- 

 tions to North American Botany, chiefly published in the 



Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Science, 

 and containing the descriptions of many new species of 

 plants and the elaboration of various groups and genera ; 

 and of the first part of the Bibliographical Index to North 

 American Botany, a most useful work of much research and 

 learning, in which are cited the authorities for all American 

 plants, with a chronological arrangement of their synonymy. 

 Mr. Watson edited the unpublished work on North American 

 Mosses of Lesquereux and James, and more recently, with 

 Professor Coulter, a new edition of Gray's Majiual of the 

 Botany of the United States. He was a valued contributor 

 to the columns of this journal, and the earlier volumes con- 

 tain his descriptions of many new and interesting plants. 

 On the death of Professor Gray, four years ago, Mr. Watson 

 was made curator of the Gray Herbarium and Library, and 

 the last years of his life have been spent in administering 

 these great collections, which make Harvard one of the 

 important centres of botanical research. 



Mr. Watson was a silent man, retiring and self-con- 

 tained, always genial and kind, of marvelous capacity for 

 sustained labor, and untiring in helping others. This is 

 not the occasion to discuss his position among the botan- 

 ists of the period ; and just now our thoughts are full of 

 tliB man, the old and trusted friend and associate, whose 

 death takes from us the example and inspiration of a modest 

 and well-spent life of noble endeavor and useful labor. 



The Golden-leaved Oak of California. 



THE great forests of California, those that clothe the 

 slopes of the mountain-ranges, which extend in paral- 

 lel lines through the state from its northern boundary, 

 where the two mountain systems are joinedby cross-ranges, 

 almost to its southern limits, are chiefly composed of co- 

 niferous trees — Pines, Firs, Spruces and Sequoias; and these 

 so predominate that the facts are often overlooked that 

 within the borders of the state are found some of the noblest 

 broad-leaved trees which grow outside the tropics, and that 

 California is the home of the handsomest and the largest, 

 if not the most valuable, Oaks of the New World. They 

 inake the valleys parks, dot the low foot-hills and climb 

 high up the mountain-sides ; some retain their foliage for 

 more than a year, and others renew it every spring ; some 

 are great trees and others are little shrubs ; sometimes an 

 individual of a species attains enormous diinensions, and 

 sometimes under different conditions of environment an- 

 other individual of the same species is only able to raise a 

 few stunted stems a foot or two from the ground. On cer- 

 tain individuals of some species the leaves are entire, and 

 on others as spiny as a leaf of the Holly-tree, or sometimes 

 the leaves of the two forms appear side by side on the same 

 branch. It is not surprising, therefore, that the student of 

 trees is perplexed when he finds himself confronted with 

 some of the California Oaks ; or that every botanist who 

 has paid attention to them has reached different conclu- 

 sions with regard to the characters to be relied on to unite 

 the different forms into specific groups. 



A few of these vi'estern Oaks recall some of our familiar 

 Oaks of the east ; two species of the north may well be de- 

 scended from the ancestor of our eastern White Oak and of 

 our Post Oak ; and the Black Oak of the western slopes of 

 the Sierra Nevada, in foliage at least, is much like our com- 

 mon Quercitron Oak ; but most of the California Oaks are 

 of Mexican and Central American types. The most curious 

 of them all to eastern eyes, save only the Tan Bark Oak 

 (Quercus densiflora), which is almost as much a Chestnut 

 as an Oak, and of an Asiatic rather than of an Ameri- 

 can race, is the Mountain Live Oak or Golden-leaved Oak 

 (Quercus chrysolepis). 



This is one of the largest of the California Oaks, and per- 

 haps the most beautiful of them all ; it is an evergreen tree, 

 and the distinctive character to which it owes its Latin 

 name is the golden tomentum, composed of a dense fuzz of 

 jointed glandular hairs which usually covers the under 

 surface of the leaves and the cups of the acorns, although 



