592 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 251. 



with a trunk two feet eleven inches in diameter seven and a 

 half feet from the ground. Below that height the trunk 

 swelled to a much greater size. Other trees were more than 

 ninety feet high, with about the same diameter. My father 

 left for San Francisco on the second day, but as the trees were 

 seeding heavily I remained ten days longer and collected 800 

 pounds of cones, out of which we will get some twenty pounds 

 of fine clean seed, the first, I believe, ever collected. I found 

 another grove of about twenty trees some two miles from this 

 one, but could see very few seedlings in either place. In both 

 groves the trees were growing on the north side of the highest 

 peaks, where the snow lies fifteen or twenty feet deep, as the 

 mail-carriers' signs show, and I can therefore believe the 

 Weeping Spruce will be hardy in most parts of the east. 



Later in the season I made another trip to these groves to 

 get as many seedlings as I could, and hunt up more trees if 

 possible. Hunters and prospectors reported that they grew in 

 various parts of the mountains, but when these men saw the 

 branches I brought down they admitted their mistakes. Mr. 

 Orrin Russell, who has lived in this part of the country for 

 more than twenty years, and who is exceptionally well in- 

 formed, reported that a few Weeping Spruces grew on the 

 Coast-range in Oregon. I visited him at his mines after I had 

 collected and shipped the few seedlings I could find on the 

 Siskiyou Mountains, and in company with his brother, Mr. 

 Joseph Russell, found the trees at the place indicated — on the 

 summit of the Coast-range, on the divide between Canon 

 Creek and Fiddler's Gulch. This is the first time, so far as I 

 know, that any record has been made of these trees in Oregon. 

 We also discovered a few more about a mile south-west of the 

 first grove. They are widely scattered, and in a dense forest 

 of Firs and Douglas Spruce, and taller than those on the Siski- 

 you Mountains, but have a smaller trunk diameter. We spent 

 two days collecting the seedlings. Mr. Orrin Russell informed 

 me that he knew of about a dozen trees at the head of Sucker 

 Creek, in the Siskiyous, which I would have visited had I not 

 been prevented by heavy snow. 



Larkspur, Cal. 



Thomas H. Douglas. 



North Carolina Notes. 



A WEEK ago I visited Fayetteville, the head of navigation 

 ■^"^ on the Cape Fear River. I have been raising a great 

 number of Tea-plants, and had selected the neighborhood of 

 Fayetteville as a favorable location for a subexperiment sta- 

 tion for a Tea-plantation. The place lies in the upper Long- 

 leaf Pine belt, where a slightly undulating section of sandy 

 loam, underlaid with granitic clay, makes a warm soil, which 

 seems peculiarly adapted to tree-growth. There is here an 

 old neglected Tea-plantation, from which good tea has been 

 made for many years. The fact that the plants have survived 

 in a dense thicket of Pine, scrub Oak, Briers and Smilax shows 

 their hardiness, and they seem to be getting almost natural- 

 ized ; at all events, there are multitudes of young seedlings .in 

 the woods about the old plantation. At the time of our visit 

 these plants were full of flowers, but the white petals were 

 browned by the recent frost, though many buds still remained 

 to continue the bloom. 



On this old place we found a noble avenue, the trees in which 

 were alternately evergreen Magnolias and Prunus Caroliniana. 

 I have always regarded tliis last more as a large tree-like shrub 

 than a tree proper. But here they stood almost as large as the 

 old-fashioned Cherry-trees we used to plant in avenues in 

 Maryland, some with trunks eighteen inches in diameter. The 

 Magnolias were of like massive proportions. Nearer the old 

 mansion the land broke into swelling undulations as it sloped 

 toward the river, and here, with admirable taste, has been pre- 

 served a large area of the original forest-growth of the Long- 

 leaf Pine. Never in all my experience have I seen a finer 

 growth of this majestic tree, and the crop of seed this year is 

 so plentiful that the ground was fairly covered with the drop- 

 ping seeds. It may be many years before another such crop 

 is made, for the Long-leaf Pine is rather shy in fruiting. Here, 

 too, on the lawn, were great plants of Gardenia florida, with 

 their latest flowers just crisped by the frost, but with glossy 

 foliage untouched, testifying by their massive growth to the 

 generous soil and hospitable climate. 



When my business was over I spent a day looking about the 

 old town for objects of horticultural interest. In one door- 

 yard, and only one, I saw Olea (Osmanthus) fragrans of fine 

 size, from whose sweet blossoms the frost had not quite driven 

 the perfume. In this same door-yard Magnolia furcata did not 

 look altogether happy. Just across the street an old mansion 

 had burned down the day before, and I wandered in the 

 grounds, crowded with many interesting plants. Close by the 

 still smoking ruins, two plants of Camellia, to match formerly 



fine pyramids, now stood scorched and blackened, while the 

 great Indian- Azaleas, that stood by the portico, were evi- 

 dently killed by the fire. Near by a Cryptomeria, nearly fifty 

 feet high, was completely covered by a giant plant of Eleagnus 

 reflexa. Out of danger from the fire stood the largest Cork 

 Oak I have ever seen, though tb.ere is a larger one at Avoca, 

 on Albemarle Sound, from which I have had acorns sent 

 me this season. The Fayetteville people are evidently flower- 

 lovers, for almost every door-yard has its little glass-covered 

 pit for wintering over the pet Geraniums and Callas. The 

 Oleanders kept company with the Gardenias outside, in many 

 places sheltered by dense and closely trimmed hedges of 

 Japan Evonymus. As in most other places, far-fetched things 

 seem to be most valued, if I except the ever-present Laurel 

 Cherry and Magnolia. In one place only I saw some plants of 

 the beautiful Ilex vomitoria. One of these was loaded with its 

 brilliant scarlet berries, looking as translucent as glass beads. 

 I am exceedingly sorry it seems necessary to go back to the 

 name " vomitoria " for this beautiful shrub, Cassine was so 

 much more pleasant. The common name here is " Yaupon," 

 probably the old Indian name. The pretty Laurel Cherry, 

 Prunus Caroliniana, is here called Mock Orange. Osmanthus 

 Americana, the American Olive, one of the handsomest 

 shrubs of our coast, I did not find cultivated anywhere. 



The front yards were pleasant, and I strolled around the 

 back streets to peep at the vegetable gardens. Alas, what a 

 poor appreciation people have of their climate. Not a vege- 

 table did I see, except some unhappy, worm-eaten Collards 

 on stalks two or three feet high, and a few Turnips. No Let- 

 tuce, no Radishes, no Kale, no Spinach ; no cold frames for 

 heading Lettuce free from frost-marks. And yet, in this 

 warm, sandy soil and genial sunshine, these hardy vegetables 

 would be just in their element now. But the Fayetteville 

 gardens showed fewer vegetables than the snow-buried gar- 

 dens of the north. In my own garden in the colder clay soil 

 of Raleigh there is not a day all winter in which we do not 

 have fresh vegetables from the garden, and here, in a warmer 

 soil and seventy-five miles further south, not a green thing 

 could be seen in the kitchen gardens but that gaunt burlesque 

 of a Cabbage, called the Collard. Only a few days before, I 

 had dug niy late crop of Irish potatoes, grown since August, 

 and here was a thriving town living on northern potatoes at 

 $1.50 a bushel, with stalks of the " roasfing-ear" corn still 

 standing in the gardens since the June crop was eaten. 

 Raleigh, N. c. W. F. Massey. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



A Double Morning Glory. 



IN our issue of October 5th, page 480, we spoke of 

 having received from IVIr. Curtis A. Perry, of Brain- 

 tree, Massachusetts, specimens of a double-flowfered ]\iorn- 

 ing Glory, Ipomoea purpurea, or, at least, of a plant ap- 

 parently identical with Ipomcea purpurea in all its charac- 

 ters except the corolla ; the calyx, which is also sometimes 

 doubled, being especially well marked by its shape and 

 pubescence. The leaves were almost as large as those of 

 Aristolochia Sipho, and the flowers, which were very 

 much doubled, were a blush white and streaked with 

 light purple. Photographs of the plant showed that it was 

 rampant in growth and profuse in bloom, the flowers 

 standing out boldly beyond the leaves. The seed first 

 came from Mexico three years ago, and the seeds from the 

 plants then grown have produced plants in which for three 

 )''ears the flowers have come true to their double charac- 

 ter. The plants begin to bloom out-of-doors in Septem- 

 ber, but one of them, when cut back last autumn, flourished 

 well as a pot-plant in an ordinary furnace-heated house. 



After these notes were published. Mr. Sylvester Baxter, 

 of Boston, wrote us that he was with Mr. Perry, visiting 

 the little tropical city of Cuautla, when they first ob- 

 served among other plants a strange-looking flower on a 

 vine which was romping over the corridor of the second 

 story of the hotel where they were stopping, and, from 

 time to time, gathered seeds as they ripened. The first 

 year both Mr. Perry and Mr. Baxter raised plants, which 

 bloomed abundantly. The plants flower much later than 

 the single variety, even when growing side by side with it 

 under the same coriditions, so that it is difficult to obtain 

 mature seed from outdoor plants before autumn frosts cut 



