66 



Garden and Forest. 



[April 4, 1888. 



or moisture, sunshine or sliade ; 5tli. — the details of its suc- 

 cessful culture, with the experience of prominent horticul- 

 turists, given with thoroughness and critical knowledge; 6th. — 

 any peculiarities which the plant may exhibit, bearing upon 

 its reproduction, upon the probability of obtaining varieties 

 from it by seed or by hybridization, with suggestions for trial ; 

 and 7th. — the advantages and disadvantages which the plant 

 offers to the amateur of limited means and limited knowledge. 

 All amateurs know that in the annual catalogues of tiorists 

 the merits of a plant are always very strongly and not always 

 very truthfully stated, while its demerits are passed over in 

 silence. Yet these last may be and often are of much greater 

 importance. Let us have the whole truth about every plant, 

 and have it in detail. One bulb about which nothing is said 

 but that it yields a brilliant flower, does yield such a flower, 

 lasting for an hour or two only. Another much lauded plant 

 requires such an amount of care and attention — such coddling 

 and nursing — as to make its culture, to say the least, very un- 

 desirable for most lovers of plants. A third blooms so late in 

 the season, that in cool climates — upon the sea shore, for in- 

 stance — it never yields a flower, or blooms only to be cut down 

 by an untimely frost. Another requires a heavy covering of 

 leaves in the autumn, to be removed at a certain time in the 

 spring and with certain precautions. Now, what the amateur 

 has to coniDlain of is that no one work gives all that he wishes 

 to know before purchasing a particular shrub, bulb or package 

 of seeds, so that he can at once tell whether it is advisable to 

 attempt the culture of what seems in the salesman's descrip- 

 tion so attractive. During the last twenty years a great deal of 

 valuable experience has been gained in regard to the culture 

 of plants in the open ground, and a large numfier of new plants 

 has been introduced. The volumes of the Gardener' s Chron- 

 icle, Garden, Gartenflora, Revue Hor/icole, and other periodi- 

 cals, contain an ample supply of material at least for the purely 

 practical part of a complete manual of horticulture. Some old 

 books — Mrs. Loudin's quarto volume on bulbs, for instance — 

 are not yet out of date, and contain some very valuable infor- 

 mation not to be found in more recent works or not with the 

 same amount of detail. Why should we not have a work on 

 plants for the open ground, which should be made up of a 

 series of brief Ijut complete and thorough monographs giving 

 all that is known about each pilant } Plants which recjuire to be 

 wintered in cold-frames or green-houses should of course be 

 included, but green-liouse plants proper, vegetables and fruits, 

 should lie omitted, because all these require special treatises. 

 We should still have a large and probably somewhat expensive 

 work, but one which would replace a library of other treatises 

 — but the names of the best plants and best varieties need be 

 given and only the best authorities cited. Ornamental shrubs 

 could be admitted into such a work, but not trees, properly speak- 

 ing. Fortliese there should be a special treatise written upon 

 the same plan. Such a manual as is here proposed might be 

 the work of a number of writers, each taking a particular class 

 of plants — a committee, for instance, of some prominent hor- 

 ticultural society. Properly divided among various co-laborers, 

 the work could be flnished in a comparatively short time. 

 Figures are not absolutely necessary, though often convenient 

 and sometimes very desirable, but they would greatly increase 

 the expense of the work if numerous. It is possible that a 

 good translation of Vilmorin's work, with the permission of 

 the author, might serve as the basis of a new and greatly en- 

 larged treatise. We want the experience of all the leading 

 amateurs as well as of the professional gardeners, and we want 

 a work which shall be a complete manual written in the highest 

 scientific spirit, to be improved, added to, corrected and con- 

 densed as new editions may be demanded. 



Newport, R.I. IVoko/l Gibbs. 



Phlox adsiu'geiis.* 



IV/rOST of the eastern species of Phlox have long been favor- 

 -'■'-'■ ites in the gardens both of this country and of Europe. 



-The ease witli which they are cultivated, the abundance and 

 long continuance of their flowers, and the variety of their 

 coloring will account sufficiently for this. The tall perennial 

 species, with compact inflorescence, and in numerous varie- 

 ties, the annual Drummond's Phlox, with its looser, profuse 



. bloom of manifold colors, and the evergreen Moss Pink, cov- 

 ering the soil in early spring with a carpet of flowers, are all 

 equally well known. On the other hand, the species of the 



*P. AD5URGENS. Torr. in herb.; Gray. Prac. Am. Acud., viii. 256. Glabrous, with 

 the slender peduncles and calyx glaridular-pubescent ; stems about a span liis^h, 

 ascending from a procumbent base; leaves ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acute ; co- 

 rolla-fube mure than twice the length of the short caly.x, the segments of the rose- 

 colored limb obovate and entire ; style elongated. 



western part of the continent are totally unknown as orna- 

 ments of the garden. Most of them differ in habit from their 

 eastern relatives, some being dwarf perennials, forming com- 

 pact evergreen cushions, which in earliest spring are a massof 

 color, and the rest loosely tufted plants, with an open, rather 

 few-flowered inflorescence. On the whole they do not promise 

 to prove so valuable to the florist as are the eastern species, 

 liut skillful treatment may develop strains that will repay the 

 trouble of trial. P. nana, which in the wild state varies greatly 

 in color, P. adsurgens, and some of the cespitose species, are 

 certainly not without merit. 



Nearly all have narrow, or linear, or small and awl-shaped 

 leaves, the only one with broader leaves, like most of the east- 

 ern species, being the one of whicfi a figure is here given. 

 This, P. adsurgens, is a rare species of the Cascade Mountains 



