114 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 



New or Little Known Plants. 



Hymenocallis humilis.* 



THE so-called Pancratiums of the United States are 

 represented in our illustration for this number. The 

 true Pancratiums, however, are all natives of the Old World, 

 and are characterized by having the tube of the flower 

 considerably dilated upward, and therefore funnelform. The 

 crown which unites the filaments is also usually lobed, and 

 the cells of the fruit are several-seeded. The American 

 species all belong to the genus Hymeuocallis, which has the 

 tube narrowly cylindiical and only two ovules in each cell 

 of the ovary. They are found in marshes and on river 

 banks in the southern Atlantic and Gulf States, mostly near 

 the coast, though one species, which is supposed to be the 

 same as the U. roiala of the coast, is fovnid in Tennessee 

 and Kentucky. 



The figure here given shows one of two species which 

 ■weredisco\ered in Florida by Dr. Edward Palmer in 1874. 

 H. huviiUs is a low and slender species, the smallest of the 

 genus. The bulb appears to be attached to a rather thick 

 rootstock, and sends up a few short narrow leaves and a 

 short scape which bears a single flower. The linear seg- 

 ments are greenish, as are also the anthers, while the 

 broadly funnelform truncate crown is white. The plant 

 was found on the banks of the Indian River in flower early 

 in March, but it has not been again collected. Dr. Palmer 

 speaks of it as common in the grassy meadows near the 

 river, a free bloomer, and very showy, and the most at- 

 tractive plant found by him in that region. S. IV. 



Cultural Department. 

 Hybrid Aquilegias. 



POSSIBLY no genus of plants more readily admits of a 

 perfect hybridization between the different species 

 than the Aquilegia. For this reason it is almost impossible 

 to preserve the seedlings pure should the parent plant have 

 grown near any other species. Even when separated, 

 the pollen will be distributed through insect agency, 

 and the new generation in almost every case will possess 

 marked characters, differing from the species. Taking ad- 

 vantage of this peculiarity, hybridizers have produced 

 some curious and beautiful strains, and the only dil^- 

 culty in the way of its permanent usefulness is the trait 

 alluded to, that of so easily departing from any fixed type. 



About twenty-five years ago Dr. C. C. Parry, then engaged 

 in studying the Flora of Colorado, happened upon A. 

 cccrulea. Torn, and with the herbarium specimen sent the 

 writer was a small packet of seeds which were carefully 

 grown, and the plants served as the female parents in a 

 remarkable series of experiments in hybridization with 

 several other species. One of the most instructive and 

 valuable crosses was from the pollen of the white form of 

 A. vulgaris; the result being flowers identical in form with 

 A. ccerulea, but pure snow-white in color. 



In addition, as if to demonstrate the extent of its possi- 

 bilities, two of the seedlings yielded perfectly double 

 white blooms of the size and form of A. cccrulea, even 

 retaining the peculiar long curved spurs of that species. 



In the collection of seedlings were flowers of almost 

 every imaginable tint, but all showing, in a marked degree, 

 the influence of the cccrulea type. Subsequent efforts in 

 the same direction with other species gave some inter- 

 esting results, but none were more valuable than the 

 above, unless we except a little bed of seedlings where 

 the male parent was also our eastern species, A. Canadensis. 

 The progeny in this case almost universally exhibited 

 blooms showing various shades of red, but retaining all 

 the other characters of the mother plant. 



*H. HUMILIS, Watson, Proc. Am. Acad., xiv, 301. Bulb half an inch thick or more, 

 upon a rootstoclt, covered by the broad sheathing bases of the leaves, which are 

 four to six inches lonj* by about two lines broad ; scape scarcely equaling the 

 leaves, one-flowered; segments of the spathe narrowly linear; flowers greenish, 

 the tube fifteen lines long and shorter than the linear segments of the perianth; 

 crown short, not n-irrowedat base, truncate between the erect filaments, wliicii are 

 a third shorter than the perianth and style; anthers greenish; ovary oblong, be- 

 coming an inch long in fruit. 



Hymenocallis humilis. 



A few showy hybrids were produced by crossing A. 

 forniosa and A. chrysantha with A. cccrulea, but the result 

 did not prove so satisfactory as the foregoing, the colors 

 being undecided, and the form, as a rule, greatly inferior 

 to the parents. The development and fixing of new 

 forms in flowers, as practiced on the numerous seed- 

 farms in Europe, fully demonstrate, that by a systematic 

 course of selection for a series of years, almost any pe- 

 culiarity of color or form may be perpetuated from seeds 

 and made to retain its idiosyncrasies thereafter. Whether 

 this has been attempted with Aquilegia hybrids I do 

 not know, although the numerous and very distinct col- 

 ors of A. vulgaris will come true to name almost invari- 

 ably. Division of the root was attempted and for several 

 years the finest of these forms were retained, but finally 

 all passed out of existence. Josiah Hoopes. 



Rhus cotinoides. — Three years ago a small plant of this rare 

 species was set in our nursery, where the ground is good and 

 the situation well sheltered. It has grown vigorously, and 

 made a single stemmed, well branched specimen, eight feet 

 high. But it has been protected with barrels in winter. Last 

 wmter we gathered and tied the branches together and to a 



