234 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 221. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Menispermum Dauricum. 



THE g-enus Menispermum contains two species which 

 so closely resemble each other that they can perhaps 

 as well be taken for geographical varieties as species. 

 The origin and type of the genus is a native of our north- 

 ern states, where it is not rare on the banks of streams 

 and in other low, moist situations ; the second species, of 

 which a figure is published on page 233 of this issue, is 

 Asiatic, and appears to be common and widely distributed 

 in Siberia, Manchuria, northern and central China, and in 

 JajTan. Like its American relative, it is a graceful woody 

 climber, with slender stems which attain a height of eight 

 or ten feet, but the leaves, which are thin and membra- 

 naceous, dark green and opaque above- and pale below 

 on both the American and the Asiatic plants, are on the 

 latter often more deeply cordate at the base and less 

 deeply angled. In their size and general appearance, 

 however, as well as in the character of the flowers and 

 fruit, the two plants are hardly to be distinguished. Both 

 take kindly to cultivation, and are useful plants for cover- 

 ing small trellises or low screens, stumps or walls, although 

 they make rather a heavy, solid mass of foliage, due to the 

 interlacing of the delicate stems which wind one around 

 another and do not reach out for other supports and so 

 break up the pyramidal outline they form in growing. Both 

 species are hardy in the northern states, and, in cultiva- 

 tion, produce an abundance of their handsome black fruit, 

 which, although hidden under the leaves until these fall 

 very late in the autumn without changing color, is more 

 showy than the small long-stalked clusters of minute 

 yellow-green flowers. 



Plant Notes. 

 Some Recent Portraits. 



THE colored plate in a recent issue of Tlie Garden is 

 devoted to a group of the hybrid Java Rhododen- 

 drons, of which a correspondent writes in the columns of 

 our contemporary that " few, if any, greater triumphs of 

 the hybridist could be pointed out than the magnificent 

 forms of Java or tube-flowered Rhododendrons that are 

 now to be found in our gardens, with which the name of 

 Messrs. Veitch is so closely connected." 



The first of these hybrids, known as Princess Royal, was ■ 

 raised about forty years ago by crossing the white-flowered 

 Rhododendron jasminiflorum with the orange-flowered R. 

 Javanicum, the offspring producing pink flowers. This, 

 the type of the race, is still one of the best of its color, 

 and none of the more recent acquisitions surpass it in habit, 

 foliage, or in the abundance of its flowers. Other species 

 have since been used in the establishment of this garden- 

 race, which now contains the blood not only of the two spe- 

 cies mentioned, but also of R. multicolor, R. Brookeanum, 

 R. Lobbi, R. Malayanum and R. Teysmanni. The offspring 

 of these crosses produce scarlet, pink, yellow, white and 

 rose-colored flowers, and the plants have the meiit of re- 

 maining in bloom almost continuously throughout the 

 year, provided they are subjected to a sufficiently high and 

 moist temperature. They are not, h-owever, very vigorous 

 plants, and their habit often leaves much to be desired. 

 Most of these hybrids produce single flowers, although 

 among them is a small group with double flowers, to which 

 the name of R. balsamineflorum has been given, from their 

 fancied resemblance to the double Balsam-flowers. This 

 double-flowered race originated from one bloom, which 

 showed a tendency to make a double corolla, and which, 

 being fertilized with its own pollen, produced seeds from 

 which the double-flowered plants were raised. They are 

 distinctly inferior to the single-flowered kinds in beaut)'', 

 although they last much longer. 



The writer of The Garden recommends the following 

 varieties : Luteo-roseum, Primrose, Jasminiflorum carmina- 



tum, Duchess of Edinburgh, the Prince Leopold, Princess 

 Royal, Duchess of Teck, Militaire, Aphrodite, Princess Chris- 

 tian, Brilliant, Favourite, LordVVoolsey, Princess Alexander, 

 Queen Victoria, Triumph and Ophelia. All of these and 

 many others may be found in some of the best American 

 collections, notably in Mr. Hunnewell's garden at Wel- 

 lesley, where the cultivation of all Rhododendrons is made 

 a specialty; and apparently they thrive in this country 

 and give as much satisfaction as they do in England. 



A Double-flowered Cyclamen. 



A MONG the so-called garden varieties of plants those with 

 -^*- double fiowers often attract attention. These flowers are 

 not only in many cases handsonie, but often they have some 

 interest to the students of botanical science. This character 

 of "double flowering" is, however, attributed to different 

 forms, in which a development of supernumerary organs, 

 such as petals, has taken place. But there are recorded in- 

 stances in botanical literature of other organs thus developed, 

 especially in Masters' Vegetable Teratology. There may, then, 

 be a distinction made between the cases in which an augmen- 

 tation of parts of the flower has taken place as a result of 

 overdevelopment, the affected organs being repeated over and 

 over again, often without any transmutation of form, and other 

 cases which ought more properly to be classed as examples of 

 prolification of the flower. 



It does not seem to be common for both of these forms to 

 occur on the same individual, yet it has lately been observed 

 in a specimen of Cyclamen Persicum, which is cultivated in 

 the United States Botanical Garden. All the flowers were ab- 

 normal and somewhat larger than in the ordinary form. In 

 some of these, as shown in Fig. 43 (p. 235), the number of corolla- 

 lobes was increased to eleven, but they all showed the typical 

 form and color, light rose with crimson base, and were dis- 

 tinctly arranged in wreaths, so that no fission of the lobes 

 seemed to have taken place. It was a case of simple multipli- 

 cation of the corolla. The calyx was perfectly normal, but the 

 number of stamens was increased to seven or eight, which, 

 however, like the pistil, did not show any kind of transmuta- 

 tion of form. 



Some other flowers of the same individual were, on the 

 other hand, proliferous. There were developed here, inside 

 the calyx, small whitish flowers, more or less distinctly situ- 

 ated in the axils of the five calyx-lobes and between these and 

 the lobes of the corolla (Figs. 44 and 45). In these proliferous 

 flowers the number of corolla-lobes was seven or eight, situ- 

 ated in wreaths, as in the flower described above. The calyx- 

 lobes, the stamens and pistil did not differ, however, from the 

 normal form. 



If we examine one of these small flowers (Fig. 46) which has 

 been removed froni the specimen illustrated in Fig. 45, we 

 see that there is no calyx, and that the very irregular corolla 

 has eight separate lobes which are not distinctly arranged in 

 spiral, and are not bent backward as in flie normal corolla. 

 These small supernumerary flowers were merely in bud, while 

 the main flower was in full bloom, and the stamens and pistil 

 were merely present as rudiments. 



U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C. TlieO. Hollll. 



I 



Cultural Department. 



Winter Protection in Mild Climates. 



HAVE been much interested in some experiments in pro- 

 tecting tender and half-hardy plants. In this climate the 

 rhizomes of many Cannas will usually pass through the winter 

 in the ground without any particular protection. This is par- 

 ticularly true of Canna flaccida, which is rapidly becoming a 

 weed by running under fences and invading neighboring 

 grounds. Those varieties which make very stout and short 

 rhizomes of a more fleshy character are liable to be injured 

 unless covered. C. Ehemanii keeps much better protected in 

 the open ground than it does lifted, as its rhizomes will not 

 endure drying as others will, and if lifted it must be put into a 

 greenhouse and some degree of growth kept up. In the open 

 ground it comes through in fine condition when covered with 

 coarse manure or with sawdust. The Crozy Cannas came 

 through with the same kind of protection. 



Caladium esculentum did finely with a sharp mound of soil 

 over the corms. So also did Tuberous Begonias. A sharp 

 well-beaten earth-mound I prefer for these, as preventing too 

 much access of water. Amaryllis Johnsoni audits allies allsur- 



