May II, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



227 



riety of V. pedata called in Washington " Wild Pansy." We 

 had never seen it before, and the flower, with its two upper 

 petals of velvety royal purple, seemed singularly beautiful. 

 When we reached the Pansy-hill on our return a temptation 

 too great to be resisted was before us. We were not prepared 

 for gardening, but, taking off our gloves, we grubbed up the 

 Vioiet-roots, which fortunately came up easily, until our pocket- 

 handkerchiefs were filled with them. On getting back to the 

 city we packed the roots carefully and sent Ihem to be planted 

 in the garden at home. 



When I arrived at home, the ist of June, the Violets were 

 blooming in the garden, and continued to bloom at intervals 

 all summer long. The plants were still covered witli buds 

 when the first frosts came and nipped them. Having many 

 fears lest the cold wuiter should prove fatal to these natives of 

 a warmer latitude I covered tliem with leaves ; but when the 

 spring came round again and the plants were uncovered, they 

 at once began to put forth fresh leaves and flower-buds and 

 came into bloom the ist of May. 



They are still prospering in my sunny garden, which has a 

 sandy soil well suited to Violets. In rainy seasons they blos- 

 som all through the summer until the frost chills them in the 

 autumn. In dry seasons there are few flowers after the pro- 

 fuse bloom of May until September, when they bloom nearly 

 as freely as in the spring. The flowers are larger and hand- 

 somer than they were when the plants were first placed in the 

 garden, and many of the lower petals are freaked with royal 

 purple. There is no Pansy-bed near my Violets, and hybrid- 

 ization cannot cause the markings, for they occur on the blos- 

 soms of the original plants. . r~ t 



Cambridge, Mass Carohiu A. Farley. 



Recent Publications. 



A Handbook of West American Cone-bearers : Approved 

 English names, with brief popular descriptions of the Cone- 

 bearing Trees of the Pacific coast, north of Mexico and west of 

 the Rocky Mountains. By J. G. Lemmon, San Francisco. 1892. 

 Mr. Lemmon has devoted himself of late years to a careful 

 study of the cone-bearing trees of the Pacific states, and 

 in the present handbook he makes an appeal " to botanists, 

 naturalists, school superintendents and teachers, lumbermen, 

 travelers, and tree-lovers generally," for fixed vernacular 

 names for these trees, urging them "to ignore senseless inap- 

 propriate names for our trees, and to insist upon suitable 

 descriptive distinguishing names, and to have only one name 

 for each kind of tree," which he rightly considers should be 

 taken up by the public and made the popular name. " I am 

 not now advocating," he remarks, "the popular use of the 

 scientific names ; that will come in due time. The youth of 

 America will soon be ashamed not to be familiar with our 

 principal botanical names as with household words. It will 

 be admitted that the only really distinguishing names are those 

 conferred and duly published by scientists having full knowl- 

 edge of the subject and its relations. These are the technical 

 names — those of last resort — for they alone may infallibly dis- 

 tinguish any object in nature. 



"Such names, of course, are written in Latin, but they may 

 be understood by the learned of all nations. A person often 

 hesitates about using them, ignorant perhaps of their proper 

 pronunciation, and dreading the. burden he fears they may im- 

 pose on his memory. The coining of vernacular names is a 

 very different matter, and such names are often a matter of 

 chance, and too frequently made without a full knowledge." 

 As an example of this, Mr. Lemmon points to the fact that " in 

 one short range of California mountains there are seven dif- 

 ferent species of Pine. Four of these Pines are called by the 

 same name, and that the meaningless one, ' Bull Pine.' Now, 

 one of these species, Pinus Coulteri, bears the largest and 

 heaviest cones in the world, a single cone often weighing five 

 to eight pounds. What better name for this tree than ' Big 

 Cone Pine ?' A second, P. Sabiniana, has pea-green or grayish 

 foliage, distinguishing the trees from others at a distance. 

 ' Gray-leaved Pine ' is suggested for this tree. The third spe- 

 cies, P. Jeffreyii, has dark, often black, bark, finely checkered, 

 in strong contrast with light-colored, well-known Yellow Pine 

 (P. ponderosa), with which it is often associated. What bet- 

 tername," Mr. Lemmon asks, "for this treethan ' BlackPine'?" 

 He then submits what he considers the most appropriate 

 and best vernacular names for the ditferent coniferous trees of 

 his region in the hope that they will, by this useful publication, 

 become familiar to the public, and so gradually established. 

 We are glad to publish in this connection his names, in the 

 hope of aiding him to bring about a most desirable reform. 

 P. Lambertiana he would call "the Great Sugar Pine " ; P- 



monticola, "the Little Sugar Pine"; P. Ayacahuite, var. stro- 

 biformis, "the Arizona White Pine." For P. flexuosa and P. 

 albicaulis he suggests "Rocky Mountain White Pine" and 

 " Alpine White Bark Pine," although this last, it seems to us, 

 would be sufficiently well designated by the shorter name of 

 "White Bark Pine." P. Balfouriana is appropriately called 

 "Fox-tail Pine," the name by which it has been known for 

 many years ; and P. aristata is here called " Bristle-cone Pine." 

 Of the Nut Pines, P. monophylla is called "Nevada Nut 

 Pine," although the species is not confined to the state of Ne- 

 vada. P. Parryana is called "Parry Nut Pine"; 1^. edulis, 

 " New Mexican PiHon," although New Mexico is not the ex- 

 clusive home of this species ; and P. cembroidcs, " the Stone- 

 seed Mexican Pifion," a rather unnecessarily longand awkward 

 name. P. contorta is called "the North-coast Scrub Pine"; 

 perhaps "Contorted Pine" would be as good a designation. 

 P. Murrayana is called "Tamarack Pine," the name by which 

 the species, from a fancied resemblance to the Tamarack of 

 eastern swamps, is universally known to travelers in the high 

 Sierras. P. ponderosa is called "Western Yellow Pine," and 

 P. Jeffreyii "Western Black Pine," the variety of the high 

 Sierras being called " the Sierra Red-bark Pine," and that of 

 Lower California, recently portrayed in this journal, " Penin- 

 sula Black Pine." Upon P. Arizonica is bestowed the some- 

 what awkward name of " Arizona Five-leaved Lumber Pine," 

 a particularly unfortunate designation, as the leaves are not 

 always in fives and the species does not produce especially 

 valuable lumber. P. lafifolia is called " the Arizona Broad- 

 leaved Lumber Pine," and P. Chihuahua "the Chihuahua Top- 

 cone Pine." P. Torreyana is appropriately called " the Torrey 

 Pine" ; P. tuberculata, " the Monterey Pine," and P. attenuata 

 (of Lemmon), until recently known as P. tuberculata, the 

 " Narrow-cone Pine." P. muricata is called " the Prickly-cone 

 Pine," and P. Banksiana, which Mr. Lemmon reports from the 

 Selkirk mountains in British Columbia, " the Canada Horn- 

 cone Pine," a name which certainly is not more appropriate 

 or easier to fix in the memory than " Gray Pine," by which this 

 species is almost universally known in Canada. 



For the Firs, whose identity and synonymy are more con- 

 fused than the trees of any other group of western American 

 conifers, Mr. Lemmon suggests that Abies amabilis shall be 

 called "the Lovely Red Fir"; A. nobilis, " the Feather-cone 

 Red Fir," a name which seems to us inappropriate ; A. mag- 

 nifica, "the California Red Fir," and A. religiosa, "the Mexi- 

 can Sacred Fir." A. lasiocarpa appears as "the Downy-cone 

 Subalpine Fir"; A. grandis, "the Oregon White Fir"; A. 

 Lowiana, " the California White Fir " ; A. concolor, " the Colo- 

 rado White Fir," and A. venusta, "the Bristle-cone Fir." 



It hardly seems necessary to designate Sequoia semper- 

 virens as "the Coast Redwood," as it is the only California 

 conifer called Redwood, or to call Sequoia gigantea " Giant 

 Sequoia." To our taste "Big Tree" is a simpler and better 

 name. For Thuya gigantea, " Pacific Red Cedar " is proposed, 

 and for Libocedrous decurrens "California Post Cedar." 

 Chamsecypris Nutkaensis is called " Alaska Ground Cypress," 

 but as this tree sometimes attains a height of one hundred 

 feet and is by no means confined to Alaska, this name will 

 hardly find general acceptance. 



Cupressus Arizonica is considered distinct by Mr. Lemmon 

 from the species of Guadaloupe Island (C. Guadalupensis, 

 Watson), and is here given the name of "Arizona Red-bark 

 Cypress," but as it is the only species known to grow in that 

 territory perhaps " Arizona Cypress " would sufficiently desig- 

 nate it. Nor do we like " North-coast Cypress " for C. Goveni- 

 ana, as the species is found as far south as the shores of the 

 Bay of Monterey, or "California Mountain Cypress" for C. 

 Macnabiana — a rare and local species which grows on the 

 foot-hills rather than on the mountains. Taxus brevifolia is 

 called " Pacific Yew " — a good name, although no better than 

 the one by which it is usually designated in books, " Western 

 Yew." 



Mr. Lemmon, following Professor Greene, discards Torreya 

 and adopts the earlier Tuminon of Rafinesque for the Cali- 

 fornia representative of a genus known in Florida, where one 

 species also occurs, by the vernacular name of Torreya ; and 

 as this is now a well-established name we venture to suggest, 

 whether Tuminon be universally adopted by botanists or not, 

 that the California tree be called /' the California Torreya " 

 rather than " the California False Nutmeg," as is here sug- 

 gested. 



Such criticisms as these which we have ventured upon show 

 the difficulty of fixing on any plant a vernacular name which 

 will be acceptable to every one, and will serve, perhaps, to em- 

 phasize the fact that the best name for any plant is the Latin 

 name which is given to it in accordance with a fixed and 



