September 28, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



465 



tion, and the fronds are gracefully arched. Todea Africana is 

 another very fine cool-house species. It makes a short, stout 

 trunk as the plant attains age, from which are thrown up large 

 bipinnate fronds. These are of strong texture and the pin- 

 nules deeply serrated on the margin, the surface of the fronds 

 being dark green and glossy. It makes a particularly hand- 

 some specimen when well grown. It is a strong rooting 

 species and requires an abundance of water to keep it in good 

 condition. 



Cyrtomium falcatum is one of the brightest-looking Ferns 

 in a collection ; its pinnate fronds have a fresh green color 

 and a high gloss. It is almost hardy, and is quite so in many 

 parts of England, where it is much used for planting in out- 

 door ferneries, though under such conditions it is almost de- 

 ciduous, while it retains its foliage in good condition during 

 the winter when grown under glass. C. caryotidum is similar 

 to C. falcatum in form, but is very different in color. The 

 fronds are much lighterand theyarealso thinner in texture, and 

 it is less glossy. It is not as hardy, but makes a pretty plant 

 and is readily raised from spores. Brainea insignis is a very 

 handsome Chinese species of moderate growth and arbor- 

 escent habit ; the pinnate fronds reach a length of two and a 

 half to three feet. The pinnae are lanceolate in shape, with 

 serrated edges, and the young fronds are pinkish, gradually 

 turning to bronze and later to green. Brainea is a monotypic 

 genus and continues somewhat rare, though a noticeably 

 handsome species. 



Among the smaller Ferns, several of the Pellseas are excel- 

 lent ; they are useful for pot or basket culture or for planting in 

 a rockery. P. rotundifolia is good, the nearly round pinnas strung 

 along each side of the dark brown rachis having a very light 

 and graceful effect ; a native species from the far west, P. bella, 

 is also beautiful, growing to a height of six or eight inches 

 only. Other members of this genus valuable for the cool- 

 house are P. calomelanos, P. brachyptera and P. flexuosa. 



Holmesburg, Pa. W. H. Taplin. 



Tomato Diseases. 



TOMATO plants have been troubled' with fungi this season, 

 and consumers are complaining of the high price and 

 poor quality of the fruit, while the tomato growers are lament- 

 ing the short crop. In some localities the young plants were 

 destroyed or much weakened by the bacterial disease known 

 as the Southern Tomato Blight. This has been followed by 

 the old leaf-enemy, Cladosporium fulvum, which produces. a 

 light brown, almost olive, mold upon the under side of the 

 foliage. Plants with much of this fungus usually bear inferior 

 fruit, and frequently the same enemy appears upon the fruit 

 while it is green and less than half-grown ; the blossom end 

 turns brown and decay sets in. 



The newest enemy, and one of no small importance, is an 

 anthracnose, CoUetotrichum Lycopersici, which was first ob- 

 served by Professor Chester, at the Delaware Experiment 

 Station, last season, and described by him in the Torrey Bul- 

 letin for last December. This fungus produces sunken spots 

 in the fruit, which become soft and dark. It quickly destroys 

 the Tomato, and for this reason and by its peculiar appearance 

 it is usually recognized as different from any other known 

 Tomato rot. Several times my attention has been called to 

 the ravages of this parasite by growers who observed that it 

 was a new enemy. 



The same fungus is to be found upon the foliage, when it 

 causes brown, irregular spots. At this time, when the fruit is 

 well advanced and frosts are expected daily, there is little or 

 nothing to be done, except to see that the vines are finally 

 gathered and burned. There is no question about the con- 

 tagiousness of the anthracnose. The spores are numerous, 

 and should be destroyed at the close of the season, if not 



Rutgers College. Byroii D. Halsted. 



M 



Hardy Cyclamens. 



R. EDWARD WHITTALL, writing to the Mayflower 

 on the Cyclamens of Asia Minor, says : 



The Cyclamen is another plant which has proved of interest 

 to me as a collector. A few years back I believed that it was 

 represented in Asia Minor by C. Europoeum alone and I was 

 accordingly well pleased to find that many varieties existed. 

 C. Europoeum, as I have no doubt your readers well know, 

 blooms before any of its beautiful ivy-like leaves appear above 

 ground. All the hedges around Smyrna are full of it, and 

 with the first dews of September its pretty pink-white flowers 

 appear to remind us that autumn is nigh and we have done 



once again with our hot, dry summer. If we could cap the 

 remarkably beautiful foliage of C. Europoeum with its numer- 

 ous and large blooms, what a pretty plant would be the result. 



On the sea-coast between the promontory opposite the Island 

 of Chios and the headlands opposite that of Rhodes, I found 

 what I believe must be C. macropus. The foliage of this 

 variety, though not so massive as the first-mentioned, is 

 prettily marbled, in some cases almost silver-white, which, 

 joined to numerous and pretty pink- white flowers, makes of 

 it an acceptable plant for house-decoration from December to 

 March. It has, therefore, the merit of being easily bloomed a 

 month or so before the beautiful English hybrids now so much 

 under cultivation. This variety is called in Smyrna the large 

 Rhodian, as it was first brought from that island, where it 

 grows abundantly. 



Following up this clue, one of my men came across what I 

 should say is C. Ibericum, at the foot of the Anti Taurus, 

 Boulghar dagh and Allah dagh ranges, a few miles from the 

 town of Adana. The leaves of this plant are smaller and not 

 so pretty as in the large Rhodian, but the blooms, which are 

 purple-crimson, with a very dark eye, make it a good acquisi- 

 tion. It flowers in March. 



My prettiest finds, however, date from 1891, viz., two dwarf 

 Cyclamens. The first, like C. Europceum, flowers in autumn, 

 throwing up its whitish pink blooms almost before its pretty 

 marbled leaves. The bulbs rarely exceed an inch and a half 

 across, and when taken out of the soil are of a glossy flesh- 

 color, quite distinct from any otliers of the genus found in 

 these parts. The leaves are small, barely three-fourths of an 

 inch across. 



The second dwarf I consider a gem for rockeries. The bulb, 

 like that of the first, is small, even smaller, flesh-colored 

 and glossy. The leaves are prettily marbled, and more deli- 

 cate than in the first. They grow so thickly on the plant that 

 in the numerous specimens I grew this year I had not one 

 plant in which the foliage measured more than four inches in 

 diameter. This was surmounted by a numerous set of very 

 large blooms, as compared to the foliage, of a dark red or 

 purple with an almost black eye. I have seen Coum and 

 other dwarf varieties, but I believe none come up to this 

 miniature Cyclamen, either in size or floriferousness. Both 

 these dwarfs were found on the western spurs of the Taurus, 

 above the towns of Adalia (the ancient Attalia) and Phceniciai 

 and as they were discovered peering out of the snow at ari 

 altitude of 3,000 to 4,000 feet they will probably prove hardy. 



Correspondence. 

 Early Autumn near Cape Cod. 

 To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir, — I should much rather write myself down as living on 

 Cape Cod than near it, for there is a distinctiveness, not to say 

 distinction, in its name, a share in which all its neighbors 

 covet. Every one knows where Cape Cod is, and thinks he 

 knows what it is, although accurate knowledge on this latter 

 point is, as a fact, extremely rare, while to say that one lives 

 on the western shore of Buzzard's Bay conveys a very vague 

 idea to most persons of other than New England birth. 



However, though we are only three miles to the westward of 

 the Wareham River, on the eastern bank of which Cape Cod 

 begins, no one worthy to speak to the readers of Garden and 

 Forest could claim to belong to "the Cape." For its nominal 

 beginning is a true geographical beginning, and this means a 

 distinct botanical beginning, or, more exactly, a distinct l)o- 

 tanical leaving off. Everything that grows on Cape Cod grows 

 here, from Cranberries to Pitch Pines. But many things grow 

 here which do not grow beyond the Wareham River — White 

 Pines, for instance, in profusion. And many other things 

 flourish here which just cling to existence there, so that the 

 whole aspect of our woodlands and road-sides is different ; 

 and as one drives still further to the westward, the difference 

 grows ever more strongly accentuated, so that even five or six 

 miles from the shores of the bay one can hardly believe that 

 the sandy, heathy, boggy, rough-and-tumble stretch of the 

 Cape country is covered by the same sky which covers these 

 verdant rolling meadows, the sturdy Oaks and Maples and 

 White Pines of the woodland, and the great Poplars and Lo- 

 custs by the cottage-doors. 



So, we think, we are repaid for not belonging to the Cape by 

 the variety which our daily excursions can compass. The Cape 

 is delightful, but it is all of a piece, and those who live on it 

 cannot easily go elsewhere. But we can go to the Cape after 

 dinner and be back to tea, and the next day can go to our pas- 



