534 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 246. 



of the rich soil of an old wood-pile, where it was planted, and 

 is in flourishing health. 



The Japanese Retinisporas are nearly all doing well, while 

 Kalmiasand Evergreen Andromedas have given up the strug- 

 gle. Euonym uses and the Southern Magnolia stand the season 

 well, and so do Hollies and the beautiful Mahonias and the 

 choice Osmanthus illicifolias, one of the finest of broad-leaved 

 evergreens. 



In the deciduous shrubberies perhaps the most striking 

 plant at this season of the year is Callicarpa purpurea. Its 

 foliage is still green and its many clusters of small berries, 

 which area very unusual shade of pinkish purple, with metal- 

 lic lustre, are exceedingly odd and pretty. These berries do 

 not lose their brilliancy until late in the winter season, and I 

 do not think they are often eaten by birds. 



Yuccas are proving fine plants for a dry hill-side. They are 

 unaffected by drought and are fresh and green at all times. 

 We prefer to plant them m groups away from other shrubs. 

 A few that are allowed to cluster around a large Arundo 

 dona,x form a very attractive group. 



Rose Brake, W. \'a. 



Danske Dandridtre. 



Plant Notes. 



Dendrobium chrysotoxum. 



DEXDROBIUMS with golden-yellovv flowers are always 

 admired, especially in this group, when the flowers 

 are bome in clusters. The subject of the illustration (p. 

 533) is in the collection of E. V. R. Thayer, Esq , of Lan- 

 caster, Massachusetts, and is one of the largest and best 

 examples of the plant in this country. It carried tv^'enty- 

 four handsome spikes, crowded with blossoms, which re- 

 mained in full beauty for four weeks. Its flowers appear 

 during the earlj'' spring months, and, consequently, make a 

 most useful plant for exhibiting. The glowing yellow col- 

 or of its blo.ssoms makes a delightful effect when ar- 

 ranged with graceful Palms and other plants with orna- 

 mental foliage. 



Baskets or pots will suit the cultural requirements of this 

 plant, although baskets are preferable, since an abundance 

 of air is essential during its period of growth, enabling 

 the compost to dry out more quickly, and, therefore, be 

 less liable to become stagnant. Good fibrous peat, with 

 very little sphagnum and free drainage, is the best com- 

 post. During active growth it enjoys a temperature of 

 sixty to sixty-five degrees. A few degrees higher with sun 

 heat will prove very beneficial. ^ r.- , 



New York. A- DimviOck. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Halesia tetraptera Meehani. 



THIS seedling form of a well-known plant is figured on 

 page 535 of the present issue, as it is not only inter- 

 esting as showing a possible range of seminal variation, 

 but of considerable value as a garden-plant. Its history is 

 best told by Mr. Meehan himself, who has communicated 

 to us the following information : 



" Formerly we had only two trees of Halesia tetraptera 

 from which we collected seeds for our nursery work, one 

 in Germantown, on the Upsala estate, and one in Laurel 

 Hill Cemetery. Our own history credits the seed from 

 which the variety was raised to the Germantown plant, 

 though I am willing to admit that it may have been col- 

 lected in Laurel Hill Cemetery. In any case, however, there 

 is not the slightest possibility of any hybridizing with 

 Halesia diptera, the only specimen of vi'hich in this region 

 was the small plant in Bartram's gardens, ten miles away. 



"In passing the seed-beds one day I thought I noticed 

 an Apple-tree growing with the Halesias. This attracted 

 my attention to this curious plant, which was taken up and 

 preserved. The flowers are no less interesting than the 

 foliage and habit, as there is no trace of the narrow tube- 

 like base peculiar to the corollas of Halesia tetraptera; 

 the corolla is completely saucer-shaped, and Professor 

 Gray, after examining a flowering branch, remarked that 



if it had been found wild one might reasonably suspect a 

 new genus. 



" Though the sexual organs seem perfect and the anthers 

 abundantly polleniferous, the plant is barren. Once 1 

 found two seed-vessels ; they were very small, subrotund, 

 and strictly four-winged, as in those of Halesia tetraptera. 

 The habit of the plant is wholly unlike its parent ; the head 

 is round and bushy, looked at from a distance precisely 

 like an Apple-tree. At the present time the original plant 

 is about twelve feet high and the head twelve feet across, 

 the trunk being six feet high and fifteen inches around. 

 My men, feeling some distinctive name for nursery pur- 

 poses necessary, have distributed this plant as Halesia Mee- 

 hani. I dislike Latin names for garden varieties, although 

 this form might have sprung up in the forest as well as itl 

 my garden, and it seems to me that if the practice is ever 

 justifiable it is in the present case." 



Halesia tetraptera Meehani differs from the ordinary 

 form in habit ; the flowers are smaller, with a short calyx- 

 tube and a cup-shaped corolla vi'ithout the narrow base of 

 that of the species, and are borne on pedicels which rarely 

 exceed half an inch in length, while those of Halesia tetrap- 

 tera are often three times that length. The leaves of the 

 variety are thicker, distinctly rugose, pale, and on young 

 vigorous plants often conspicuously glandular-serrate. 



c. s. s. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



Cycads. — A lecture on Cycads by Mr. Carruthers, the prin- 

 cipal botanist of the British Museum, was a special fea- 

 ture in the programme of the Royal Horticultural Society 

 last Tuesday, the other attractions being a competitive ex- 

 hibition of fruits and collections of new and interesting 

 plants. Although Mr. Carruthers talked exclusively of the 

 botanical features of his subject, he said a great deal which 

 would interest the cultivator. The position of Cycadaceae 

 in the botanical system is generally supposed to be close 

 to Palms, but, as a matter of fact, they are very nearly 

 related to the Coniferje, a relationship which their 

 floral organs conclusivel}'' shows, the cones of Cycads 

 being very similar to those of conifers structurally as well 

 as superficially. In all other respects, however, the Cycads 

 differ very widely from the conifers, their thick, rarely 

 branched trunks bearing broad crowns of pinnate, some- 

 times spinous leaves, which are folded involutely, when 

 young, like the leaves of a Fern, and the habit of produc- 

 ing their cones in the centre of the crown of leaves mark- 

 ing them out distinctly not only from conifers but from all 

 other natural orders. There are some anomalous genera 

 among the Cycads, for instance, the Australian Bowenia, 

 with an irregular fleshy root-stock, from which spring ele- 

 gant bipinnate leaves a yard across on stalks three or four 

 feet high ; this is a beautiful stove-plant when well grown. 

 Stangeria paradoxa, the great Fern puzzle, has leaves ex- 

 actly like those of a Lomaria, and a fleshy Turnip-like 

 stem. It is a native of South Africa, where it was found 

 by a German collector, and named by Kunze, Lomaria 

 eriopus. But the eminent pteridologist, J. Smith, curator 

 at-Kew, doubted its being a Fern, and about forty years 

 ago a plant at Kew flowering, it was figured under its 

 present name in the Botanical Magazine, t. 51 21. 



The geographical distribution of the Cycadaceae is re- 

 markable. They are most abundant in Africa, and they 

 occur in many parts of India, the Malay regions, Australia, 

 Central America, Florida, the West Indies, China and 

 Japan. The tallest are the Cycases, stems of which have 

 "been seen forty feet high, and the smallest is the little 

 Floridan Zamia pygmsea, or integrifolia, as it is sometimes 

 called. In the geological history of plants Cycads appear 

 to have occupied a prominent position among the very 

 first of the dryland vegetation — that is, of the Devonian or 

 Mesozoic Age. They then appear to have been world- 



