336 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 229. 



ranged. Doubts have been expressed whether, owing to the 

 heavy, smoke-laden air of Chicago, the recent movement to 

 popularize roof-gardens in the city itself will be successful. 

 But during a single summer, when neither pains nor cost will 

 be spared to maintain them, those on the New York State 

 Building will probably be made very beautiful features. 



Mr. H. E. Van Deman, of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, writes to Orchard and Garden that in Norfolk 

 the Hoffman Strawberry has been selected as one best suited 

 for market purposes. Its points of excellence are the earli- 

 ness, firmness and good color of the fruit, the vigor of the 

 plant, and the stilfness of the peduncle, which holds the fruit 

 well up. The defects of the berry are poor quality as a des- 

 sert fruit and moderate productiveness. Early, clean and firm 

 berries which will endure shipment to distant markets are 

 the great points which the market-growers desire. 



Some thirty students attended the spring course of lectures 

 on New England trees and shrubs, recently concluded at the 

 Arnold Arboretum. More than half of them were school- 

 teachers from Boston and its neighborhood, while the re- 

 mainder were mostly persons who are in charge of parks or 

 large private grounds. The lectures were specially adapted 

 for the instruction of persons who have no botanical knowl- 

 edge, and dwelt upon the useful and ornamental properties of 

 the plants in question, their habits of growth, characteristic 

 diseases and other peculiarities. An autumn course of fifteen 

 similar lectures will begin on September 7th. 



A monument is to be erected in Paris to the late Monsieur 

 Alphand, the famous landscape-gardener and director of pub- 

 lic works. The committee in charge of the matter, which in- 

 cludes Puvis de Chavannes, Charles Jacques and other artists, 

 as well as officers of the Government, appointed one of its 

 members, Charles Gamier, the architect of the Opera House, 

 to designate the most suitable site. He pronounced in favor 

 of some point on the avenue which leads to the Bois de Bou- 

 logne, and this suggestion has been adopted by the committee. 

 The monument will be architectural in character, and its 

 preparation has been confided to Monsieur Formigg. 



" Rosemary," says a German writer, " in southern Europe is 

 plaited in a bride's hair. It is also used to sprinkle holy water 

 on the coffin in which, with other flowers, it is used for dec- 

 oration, and it is carried in the bouquets of the mourners. It 

 is commonly planted on graves. Yet, hung on the entrance 

 to the house or porch, it brings good luck to the household, 

 and protects against thieves. Moreover, it possesses the 

 power of renewing youth. There is a tradition that a very 

 old, queer, shriveled queen was helped by ineans of a recipe 

 which she was careful to bequeath to her heirs. It prescribed : 

 Six pounds of Rosemary, crushed in a mortar, mixed with 

 water which was to be bathed in thrice a day." 



In a recent number of the London Academy, Mr. H. A. 

 Evans called attention to the fact that when Shakespeare twice 

 mentions the potato (in Merry Wives of Windsor, V. 5, 21, 

 and in Troilus and Cressida, V. 2, 56), it is the sweet-potato, 

 not the white potato, that is meant. The contrary fact has 

 usually been assumed by commentators, and by dictionaries 

 which include the quotations to which we refer. But The 

 Century Dictionary is more accurate. It says that the first 

 meaning of potato as an English word was sweet-potato, and 

 that it should thus be understood whenever it occurs in works 

 written before the middle of the seventeenth century. This 

 meaning, it adds, is now obsolete in England ; and the sweet- 

 potato itself is scarcely known except by name to our trans- 

 atlantic cousins. 



A month ago the Earl of Roseberry formally opened Brock- 

 well Park, and South London is now provided with one of the 

 very prettiest of all the parks of the great city. It is not so ex- 

 tensive as some of the others, since it covers only seventy- 

 eight acres, but the ground presents an unusual variety for its 

 extent. It is finely timbered, undulating in surface, and much 

 of it is thoroughly picturesque, showing bits of scenery which 

 artists delight to paint just as they find them. Altogether, it 

 has an appearance of rural remoteness, and it is the purpose 

 of the superintendent to develop the natural beauty that is 

 already there rather than to attempt any grand scheme of crea- 

 tion. I twill contain, however, an old-style walled-in garden, laid 

 out in geometrical Dutch style. This is not new, but already exists 

 with its old fruit-trees and crumbling walls and general air of 

 seclusion, so that it was wise to preserve it and continue it as 

 a genuine old-fashioned garden, which will offer a piquant con- 

 trast to the natural grounds about it. 



The latest issue from the botanical department of the Uni- 

 versity of Nebraska, being the third of the new series of its 

 contributions, consists of a second edition of Webber's Ap- 

 pendix to the Catalogue of the Flora of Nebraska, with a sup- 

 plementary list of recently reported species by Professor 

 Charles E. Bessey. Mr. Webber's Catalogue was originally 

 published in the sixth volume of the Transactions of the Acad- 

 emy of Science in St. Lotiis, bearing the date of March 12th, 

 1892. Professor Bessey's supplementary list contains one 

 hundred and seventy species discovered since Mr. Webber's 

 paper went to press. It contains mainly the plants collected 

 by Mr. Rydberg in the western counties, with others made by 

 members of the University botanical department, and by Dr. 

 Hapeman, of Minded, and the Rev. J. M. Bates, of Ballyntine. 

 A periodical publication of all additions to the flora of the 

 state will stimulate. Professor Bessey suggests, botanical 

 students to a closer study of its flora, and encourage them to 

 deposit specimens of newly discovered species in the Univer- 

 sity Herbarium. Correspondence is solicited by the depart- 

 ment of botany to further this end. 



Mr. Albert Koebele, who is in Australia collecting beneficial 

 insects, has sent to the State Board of Horticulture of California 

 a new Lady-bird that preys on the Cottony Cushion Scale. It 

 was through the instrumentality of Mr. Koebele that the Ve- 

 dalia cardinalis was introduced into California and accom- 

 plished a work which was without precedent in the annals of 

 economic entomology. This new Lady-bird is called Novius 

 Koebelei and slightly smaller than Vedalia, the mature beetle 

 averaging about one-eighth of an inch in length. Only three 

 specimens were received, and these were placed in a small 

 jar infested with the scale. One of the insects died, but two 

 of them changed to the chrysalis state, and in a few days per- 

 fect beetles emerged, which were, fortunately, male and female. 

 Three days later the female deposited eggs, which hatched in 

 five days. The young larvae were carefully reared, and, after 

 passing through three molts, changed into the pupa state, and 

 fifty-five perfect beetles were secured in just thirty-one days 

 from the Q'g^. When liberated on trees they will, no doubt, 

 pass through their transformation in much less time, so that 

 there will be thousands of beetles for distribution very soon. 

 It is to be hoped that they will be as efficient as the Lady-birds 

 of Mr. Koebele's original importation. 



The great mass of flowering shrubs have passed their 

 blooming season by the end of June, but those who enjoyed 

 a visit last week to the grounds of Mr. Charles A. Dana, at 

 Dosoris, Long Island, observed four shrubs in particular which 

 were flowering finely, and all of them natives. The first of 

 these was the White Swamp Honeysuckle, Rhododendron 

 (Azalea) viscosum, which was still bearing its showy clusters 

 of flowers, some of them pure white, others ranging to pink 

 or pale rose color. Near a group of these Azaleas was a speci- 

 men of Stuartia pentagyna, an American representative of the 

 Tea family, which is a native of the mountains of North Caro- 

 lina and Georgia. It is pretty generally hardy in this latitude, 

 and although it is one of the most attractive of summer- 

 blooming shrubs and has been cultivated for more than a 

 century, it is still so rare in gardens that it has no common 

 name. The flowers are three or four inches across with 

 cream-white petals, and resemble some of the single Camel- 

 lias. The Oak-leaved Hydrangea is another shrub from the 

 same region which was figured as long ago as Bartram's time, 

 and yet is comparatively rare. On the banks of streams in 

 its native home it sometimes attains a habit almost tree-like 

 and a height of some fifteen feet. The specimens on Mr. 

 Dana's grounds were not so large, but the long thyrsoid pan- 

 icles of white flowers are very showy. Thepanicled Hydrangea 

 (H. paniculata) resembles this in its inflorescence, but its 

 flowers were not yet fully expanded. This, too, is a 

 beautiful shrub, and although it was sent out long by 

 the Messrs. Parsons & Sons, of Flushing, it is rarely 

 seen. Its variety Grandiflora, which, to our taste, is not 

 so attractive, has become very common in gardens. The 

 Michigan, or Prairie, Rose (Rosa setigera), and the only 

 American Rose with climbing stems, was here trained to a pil- 

 lar, and made a beautiful picture. It was covered with corymbs 

 of large single flowers, some of them nearly three inches 

 across, of a deep rose color on their first appearance, but turn- 

 ing nearly white before they fade. These immense clusters 

 in the greatest profusion, backed by the broad handsome foli- 

 age of this plant, make it very desirable, and when grown in 

 good soil and fed generously it is more beautiful than any of 

 the double-flowered climbing Roses, such as the Queen of the 

 Prairies and the Baltimore Belle, which have been derived 

 from it as a parent. 



