424 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 237. 



and the shoots are tied to the wires above as they grow. This 

 summer tying is expensive, and the new vineyards are there- 

 fore mostly adopting the Kniffen system. This system uses 

 but two wires, wliile tlie other uses tliree, and the canes are 

 trained out on both wires in opposite directions, and the shoots 

 are allowed to hang, thus avoiding summer tying. This sys- 

 tem is now the common one on the Hudson, and it is much 

 used in Chautauqua. It has many merits for strong-growing 

 varieties such as Concord, Worden and Niagara, and on the 

 Hudson I have seen even so slender a variety as Delaware doing 

 well trained upon this system. This Boyer vineyard at Farmer 

 Village will be trained upon the Kniffen system, and its be- 

 havior will be watched with interest. tt r, ■, 



Cornell University. L. H. Bailey. 



Notes on the Flora of Smythe County, Virginia. — IV. 



A MONTH and a day later, during the last week in June, 

 we undertook a second trip to White Top. It was mid- 

 summer in the Holston valleys, as far as temperature was 

 concerned, and midsummer, too, in the world of vegetation, 

 for flowers were few and nature was resting preparatory to 

 putting on her autumn dress of Golden-rod and Aster, great 

 quantities of which were just beginning to indicate their com- 

 ing glory of gold and purple. For the first time we had fair 

 weather on the Iron Mountain, and from the gap there were 

 able to see the great sweep of the Alleghanies to the north 

 and north-west. The steep summit of White Top was much 

 more accessible than on our former visit, as the United States 

 Coast Survey had, a few days previous to our arrival, ruth- 

 lessly cut long sights in two or three directions through the 

 tall Spruces on 'the top of the ridge. 



Since our first trip the Laurel (Ivalmia latifolia) had bloomed 

 and passed away, and the great ravine beyond the Iron Moun- 

 tain was given over to Hemlocks, Rhododendron maximum 

 and Mitchella repens. The Rhododendron was in blooin, and 

 for miles we were surrounded by that stately shrub. At our 

 feet the little Partridge-berry was at the height of its flowering 

 season, and every inch of ground, even to the banks and cut- 

 tings along the road, was decorated with its long trailing vines, 

 laden with the little fragrant flowers and many of the bright 

 red berries of a former season. 



In the deep woods, on the White Top slope, three Orchids 

 were blooming. The little Listera convallarioides, a pretty in- 

 conspicuous greenish-flowered plant, grew mostly among 

 mosses under coniferous trees, and in the same localities the 

 handsome Habenaria orbiculata towered high above its hum- 

 ble relative. It is a beautiful plant, with two great round 

 shining leaves spreading flat on the ground, and a slender, 

 erect spike nearly two feet high, bearing large green and 

 white flowers. The smallest of the three Purple Fringed Or- 

 chids, H. psycodes, was abundant all through the swamp and 

 in the mountain rills, where it grew among the tall Bracken 

 and other ferns. The great banks of Diphylleia cymosa, which 

 had been in full flower a month earlier, were now in fruit, and 

 Trautvetteria palmata, an exceedingly pretty white-flowered 

 plant, bloomed in its stead, filling the woods for some distance 

 on both sides of the road. Both Picea alba and P. nigra, both 

 trees locally called Lash-horns, grew there, and we were told 

 of the existence of two trees of Abies Fraseri, which, however, 

 we were not fortunate enough to find. 



The margins of the White Top field are bordered with what 

 appears to be a series of old fruit-orchards. The majority of 

 the trees were Cratasgus punctata. The small leaf-buds only 

 had been visible on our first trip ; they had flowered in the 

 interim, and the fruit was already half an inch long and very 

 abundant. They were beautiful, crooked, wind-teased old 

 trees, with flat, symmetrically spreading branches. With 

 them were a few trees of C. coccinea, smaller and more shrub- 

 like, though we did see one tree that was a foot in diameter. 

 A few fine old Cherry-trees, Amelanchier Canadensis, two 

 feet in diameter, Pyrus Americana, nearly as large, Ouercus 

 rubra, with Beeches and Birches, the two Spruces and an oc- 

 casional Maple made up the majority of the trees along 

 the summit, where on the topmost crags some very large 

 Menziesia globularis was lingering, and the pretty Vaccinium 

 erythrocarpon was flowering in great profusion. The com- 

 mon Wood Sorrel (Oxalis Acetosella)' was there also, and we 

 were very much interested in some of the little plants that 

 had produced pink-purple flowers. 



The luxuriant undergrowth of Ferns was in itself worth the 

 journey. Along the edges of the field Dicksonia pilosiuscula 

 had complete possession. Near the moss-hung cliffs there 

 were great banks of Aspidium spinulosum, var. dilatatum, 

 tall, magnificent specimens nearly three feet in height. In 

 the Spruce-swamp and the woods below we found the va- 



riety Intermedium of the same species, and growing with it As- 

 plenium thelypteroides, A. Filix-Ioemina, Osmunda Claytoniana, 

 O. cinnamomea, the delicate light green Aspidium Novebora- 

 cense, A. marginale, and last, though by no means least as 

 to size and beauty, the handsome dark green A. Goldianum. 

 There was scarcely a flower to be seen, but, in their place, 

 banks of feathery Fern-fronds of many shades of green. 

 The finest forest that we saw during our many excursions 

 into the highlands was the one on Pine Mountain, on the bor- 

 der of Grayson County, and the lowest of the three high peaks 

 of the White Top range. If there is such a thing left in 

 south-western Virginia as forest-primeval, it is to be found along 

 Fox Creek, where for several miles we walked through the 

 pathless tract of great trees. It was impossible fotus to esti- 

 mate the dimensions of the trees. The forest- offered an ap- 

 parently endless vista of massive branchless trusks that towered 

 for a hundred feet or more above us into a great canopy of 

 green, and many a prostrate giant proved too great an ob- 

 stacle for weary feet to climb over. 



The Sugar Maple, which is here the variety Nigrum is 

 found in groves, and our young guide told astonishing 

 stories of the large amount of sugar the trees pro- 

 duced. The Red Maple was there also as a large fine 

 tree. The Black Walnuts' superb trunks, unique in size 

 and beauty, were as yet undisturbed by the all-destroying 

 lumberman. Chestnuts were beginning to bloom, and 

 vied with the giant Tulip-trees in the straightness and 

 breadth of their huge trunks. The Chestnut Oak, White 

 Oak and Red Oak were also conspicuous members of 

 the forest. Ashes were laden with fruit, and two Lindens 

 (Tilia Americana and T. heterophylla) were beginning to open 

 their little round flower-buds. T. heterophylla is one of the 

 most showy of the deciduous trees of the mountain forest, its 

 large, very dark green leaves, with the silvery under-surface 

 standing out from the banks of lighter foliage in a particularly 

 conspicuous way. The Beeches were covered with their little 

 triangular nuts, and both Magnolia Fraseri and M. acuminata 

 were also in fruit, the latter growing to a great size. 



There was very little undergrowth, and flowers were few. 

 On some of the boulders the great, smooth reddish canes of 

 Rubus Millspaughi(anewly described species, first found in the 

 mountains of West Virginia) grew over twelve feet long and 

 were covered with broad white blossoms. Clethra acuminata 

 was quite abundant in more open situations, and along the edges 

 of the woods' Oxydendrum arboreum was showing its wliile 

 buds. So dense was the shade under the trees that the flam- 

 ing Rhododendron calendulaceum, long past its flowering 

 season in the open, was still in full bloom and reached nearly 

 fifteen feet in height. Those who were intrepid enough to 

 climb to the top of the mountain told tales of great Spruces 

 over three feet in diameter. The forest is what is locally 

 known as the Douglas tract belonging to some New York 

 gentlemen, and it is to be hoped that it will not share the fate 

 of the forests of the Doe River Gorge, that are being so rapidly 

 exterminated. 



One of the rarest of the mountain plants found that day was 

 Boykinia aconitifolia, a pretty white-flowered species belong- 

 ing to the Saxifrage family, growing on the stony edge of one 

 of the little cold brooks with Thalictrum clavatum. Near it, 

 on some tall cliffs, we found the nearly equally rare Asplenium 

 montanum, not the plant with tiny fronds that grows in clefts 

 of high mountain rocks, but a large beautiful plant with dark 

 green fronds over six inches long, growing in spreading tufts 

 along the crevices of the rocks. 



New York. Anna Murray Vail. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Smilax glauca. 



AMONG our common and familiar plants are many 

 which gardeners knowr little about, and their beauty 

 and value from the garden point of view is not realized. 

 A number of such plants have been figured in this journal 

 from time to time, because we feel that in making them 

 known we are doing a real service to the owners of gar- 

 dens who, ignorant of the true resources of the American 

 flora, bring less desirable plants than those they could find 

 growing almost at their doors from the four corners of the 

 earth to decorate their estates. Such an unappreciated 

 plant is figured on page 425 of this issue ; it is the glau- 

 cous-leaved Smilax (Smilax glauca), a common inhabitant 

 of dry sandy uplands from eastern Massachusetts to Flor- 

 ida and Texas. Like nearly all the species of the large 



