196 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 218. 



sociate DalTodils ratlier with a dinner-tal>le in February than 

 with a garden-border in April, and Lilies-of-tlie-valley with 

 winter weddings rather tlian with dewy mornings in early 

 summer. But how can they help it ? And, deprived as they 

 are of the better part, why should not they liU their lives as full 

 of beauty as they can, even though Nature's processes be arti- 

 ficially forced, and Nature's order of things almost reversed ? 

 They cannot grow their Mowers, or even watch nature grow 

 them ; and if they must buy them, ignoring whence they 

 come, it cannot matter much whether they come from under 

 glass or from under the greenwood-tree. 



However, wliether it is " right " or " wrong " to anticipate the 

 seasons as we city folk now do with the help of the florist and 

 his greenhouse, no one will question that it is right to bring 

 the country to town in anotlier fashion which has likewise de- 

 veloped vastly in very recent years. Surely it is an unmixed 

 pleasure to think that no city child need now ignore the fact 

 when the first spring wild flowers really begin to blossom a 

 little way out of town, or when New Jersey gardens are at their 

 best. Scarcely any wild flowers or common garden flowers 

 came to us, even in their proper season, a few years ago. Now 

 all the familiar kinds come, and not flowers alone, but the first 

 hints and promises of flowers, and autumn witnesses that flow- 

 ers have been. Pussy Willows come first, and budding sprays 

 of shrubs that will bloom out in water, and then Marsh Mari- 

 golds and Trailing Arbutus and Jack-in-the-pulpits and Apple- 

 blossoms, and so on to the outdoor Lilacs and Daffodils, clieap- 

 ened now within reach of theslimmest purse, and the Mountain 

 Laurel, not now in litfle pot-grown shrubs, but in bigandsplen- 

 did branches, and Swamp Honeysuckles and Daisies and But- 

 tercups and bunches of Clover ; and so on and on until summer 

 is over and the wild flowers and common garden flowers are 

 gone, and the bunches of Black Alder-berries come, and the 

 streets are full of Chrysanthemums, and the reign of forced and 

 coddled, coaxed and transposed greenhouse productions be- 

 gins again. Truly, if our florists' windows now defy and con- 

 tradict the calendar of the seasons, there are many months 

 when our streets illustrate this calendar faithfully for any eye 

 that knows how to interpret the pictures which Flora draws. 



New York. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



UvA Grass.- — The following inquiry comes from a Cali- 

 fornian correspondent : " V/ill you kindly inform me of the 

 name and habitat of a gigantic grass of which I forward a 

 few sprays .-' It is not grown here, but is imported and sold 

 in a dry state under the name of Uva plumes. The plume 

 itself is monstrous, being four or five feet long. The sprays 

 droop entirely on one side, reminding one of the fleece of 

 a Cashmere or Angora goat. The people who furnish the 

 plumes in Europe will not give the name of the grass." I 

 received a similar inquir}'- from an English correspondent 

 nearly four )'ears ago, and found that the plumes M'ere then 

 offered for sale by London florists under the name of Uva 

 Grass. How they were obtained is not quite clear, some 

 stating that they came from the Congo, others from India. 

 On comparing the plume at the Kew herbarium it was 

 found to be the male inflorescence of Gynerium saccha- 

 roides, a gigantic reed whiLh grows on the river-banks of 

 Cumana in Venezuela, and in Brazil. It is one of the most 

 beautiful of all tropical grasses, the stems being twelve 

 feet long, an inch in diameter, with leaves five feet long 

 and one inch in width, the edges serrate and channeled 

 along the midrib. In habit the plant is not unlike Arundo 

 Donax. The panicle is terminal, at least four feet long, 

 copiously branched and plume-like, the branches a foot and 

 a half long and clothed with small flowers, which, when 

 dried, are gray-brown in color. The plumes sold in the 

 English shops are six feet long, including the stalk ; they 

 are extremely elegant and feather)'-, but are sometimes dis- 

 figured by dyes of various colors. There is a large plant 

 of this grass in cultivation at Kew. It is grown in the tank 

 which in summer contains the Victoria regia, and is as 

 striking in appearance as some of the Bamboos. No flow- 

 ers have as yet been produced by this plant. It is prob- 

 able that the plumes sold in London, and also, apparently, 

 those nov/ sold in America, are imported from Brazil. 



Some of the plumes were among the exhibits from the 

 island of Dominica at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition 

 held in London in 1885. It is by no means unlikely that 

 this Gynerium could be grown in the southern states, par- 

 ticularly Florida. I have never seen or heard of any 

 other plant in cultivation in Europe except that at Kew, 

 which was imported direct from Venezuela about fifteen 

 years ago. 



Sarracenias as Flowering Plants. — It is probable that you 

 know a great deal more of the decorative value of Sarra- 

 cenias than we do here. They are not by any means popu- 

 lar with us, being generally classed among botanical 

 curiosities. But a well-grown and properly colored speci- 

 men of S. Drummondii or S. flava, or even of S. purpurea, 

 is, in my opinion, an object of very considerable beauty 

 apart altogether from its peculiarities of structure. We 

 have numerous hybrids and seedlings of Sarracenias now, 

 and at Kew there is a good representative collection of 

 both species and varieties. They are grown in pans in a 

 well-aired sunny greenhouse, except for about a month in 

 early spring, when, after repotting, they are placed in a 

 stove temperature and exposed to all the sunlight possible. 

 Of course, they are kept ver}' moist ahvays. Under this 

 warm treatment the new leaves, which are developed in 

 March and April, grow rapidly, and lay the foundation for 

 brilliancy of color in autumn. With the new leaves the 

 flowers are pushed up. Hitherto we have removed most 

 of the flower-buds to further the growth of the pitchers, but 

 this }'ear we left them to expand. They have been quite 

 sensational, many of the flowers being five inches across. 

 In form they vary somevi'hat, and in color they range from 

 cream-white to bright yellow and rich crimson. These 

 flowers are as pleasing as the most elegant Daffodils ; 

 they are fragrant, and last a week, at least, in water, and 

 their colors are good. Sarracenias certainly deserve to 

 take rank among first-rate flowering-plants for the green- 

 house. I have never seen a Sarracenia grown out-of-doors 

 in England that was satisfactory, nor have I seeii imported 

 wild plants with pitchers as fine as they produce under 

 cultivation. 



The weather here for the last week or so has been as 

 exceptionally warm and sunny for April as it was previ- 

 ously cold and dull. The consequence of the change is 

 apparent among the early-flowering trees and shrubs in the 

 open air. Almonds, the most beautiful of all spring-flow- 

 ering trees, and a common street-tree in the London 

 suburbs, besides early Cherries and Plums, are already 

 laden with flowers. Forsythia suspensa is a cloud of 

 lovely yellow bloom, beautiful almost beyond comparison 

 as a bush, and even more attractive when trained against a 

 sunny wall ; Acer rubrum, with its clusters of bright crim- 

 son flowers, A. hybridum, with its yellow clusters, and 

 several others are now attractive. Parrotia Persica is even 

 better than the Red Maple, several plants of it at Kew be- 

 ing now thickly laden with clusters of rich red flowers. It 

 is a beautiful tree in leaf, and in autumn it assumes the 

 richest colors before the leaves finally fall. The early 

 Rhododendrons, such as R. Dahuricum and R. Nobleanum, 

 are bright with flowers in the open borders. The rich 

 mauve-purple of Daphne Rlezereum is seen to advantage 

 when the plants are grown in large groups, two round 

 beds of it twelve feet across, and each containing about 

 twenty-five plants two feet high, and nearly as much 

 through, being especially effective. The small alpine D. 

 Blagayana is also in flower on the rockery. Pyrus Ja- 

 ponica, in its several varieties, is in full bloom, the most 

 attractive, on account of its rich blood-crimson color, being 

 that called Moerleesii. The Daffodils on the lawn are 

 again a "waving sea" of yellow. The Crocuses, now over, 

 have been equally showy. They are from the bulbs which 

 had been used for forcing, and instead of being thrown 

 away they were planted in grassy slopes on the lawns. 



Flowers in April. — The supply of these for the English, 

 and especially the London, market comes from Italy, 

 France, Belgium, and our own small islands in the south, 



