154 



Garden and Forest. 



[May 



tt) whom tlie Arboretum owes many interesting plants. 

 Primus Davidiana is a shrub three to six feet in heiglit, or, 

 in cultivation, according to Francliet (^" Planter Davidiance" p. 

 103), a robust tree fifteen to twenty feet high. The liarlv of the 

 branches and stem resembles that of a Nectarine, and witliout 

 tlie fruit the most experienced Peacli grower would liardly 

 guess the true chai-acter of this plant. It has consideral:)le 

 ornamental value. The white, or sometimes pink flowers, are 

 produced in great profusion, and the flower buds are mucli 

 iiardier than tliose of other Peaches. This suggests the pos- 

 sibility that this plant might be used in creating a new race of 

 flowering Peaches able to Ijear the cold of the Northern States. 

 Tlie fruit, however, of Prii/ius Davidiana has no vakie. It is 

 small, downy, nearly spherical, less than an inch in diameter, 

 grayish white, turning yellow at maturity. The flesh is very 

 thin, separating easily from the stone, even before the fruit is 

 ripe, and is dry and tasteless, lacking almost entirely the odor 

 of the Peach. It wrinkles on the branch before maturity, and 

 soon decays. Primus Davidiana is interesting as the repre- 

 sentative of what seems a type intermediate between the 

 Peach and the Almond. A few days later Prunus tomen- 

 tosa is in bloom. This is a shrubby Cherry, fonning a dense, 

 compact and handsome bush three or four feet high. It is a na- 

 tive of northern China, whence, probably long ago, it was intro- 

 duced into Japan, where Von Siebold met with it occasionally in 

 gardens ; and admirably figured it in his "Flora Japonica," t. 22. 

 This species can be distinguished from the other members of 

 tliegenus/';'«////jr by the thick longtomentum which covers the 

 entire under side of the leaves. The flowers which quite 

 cover the long vergate stems ai'e sessile or short stalked. 

 They are white, tinged with pink, and about the size of those 

 of the common Ciierry tree. They open when the young 

 silky leaves are about one-third grown ; and the association of 

 the handsome abundant flowers and delicate young foliage is 

 particularly attractive. Tlie handsome fruit ripens in July ; it 

 is round or nearly oval, almost transparent, deep scarlet in 

 color, and has a pleasant but rather insipid flavor. Prunus 

 tcntentosa is perfectly hardy ; and its neat habit, handsome 

 foliage, early flowers and showy fruit, entitle it to more 

 general use along the margins of shrubberies or in the liorders 

 of small gardens. 



Lonicera Standisliii and L. fragrantissima are in bloom. 

 These are probably forms of the same species. The branches 

 of the former are scabrous, however, and the leaves are decid- 

 uous, while in L. fragrantissima they are almost evergreen. 

 Both plants produce large, nearly white, deliciously fragrant 

 flowers before the appearance of the new leaves. They are 

 tall, stout, twiggy shrufis, with flexuous pale yellow-brown 

 branches, and oblong acuminate leaves, three to five inches 

 long-. They are both doubtless of Chinese origin, although 

 L. fragrantissima is a common garden plant in Japan. L. 

 Standisliii is by far the hardier of the two here, and tliis fact 

 and its deciduous leaves point to a more northern origin. It 

 was introduced into England by Fortune, the Chinese traveler, 

 who found it a common garden plant at Shanghai. Neither 

 of these plants are very hardy here, but splendid specimens of 

 Fortune's plant are a conspicuous feature in the shrubberies 

 of the Central Park in New York during the last days of April. 



A dwarf variety of the common Leather-leaf {Cassandra 

 calycit/ata), sent to the Arboretum by the Messrs. Veitch, is in 

 bloom fully ten days earlier than the American plant. It is a 

 compact and handsome shrub, eight or ten inches high, and 

 well worth a place in any garden border. And tliis is true of 

 Myrica Gale, which, although a denizen of the borders of 

 ponds and deep, cold, submerged northern swamps, is per- 

 fectly at home here on a dry, gravelly and exposed ridge, 

 where it has been flowering profusely during the past week. 

 The Sweet Gale is a handsome and very fragrant deciduous 

 shrub, three to five feet high, with pale wedge-lanceolate 

 leaves, appearing later than the flowers, which are produced 

 in stout, clense, chestnut-brown catkins from the upper axils 

 of the branches. It is a native of the northern Atlantic States 

 of northern Europe and of Siberia. 



SaUx clilorophylla, a low spreading bush, a few inches high, 

 from the Alpine smnmits of the White Mountains of New 

 Hampshire and from British America, takes kindly to cultiva- 

 tion, and has l>een in flower for a fortnight. It will make a 

 useful plant for the margins of shruliberies, wliere a bright, 

 pleasant green is desired rather than conspicuous flowers. 

 Two other North American shrubs, now in bloom, can be 

 used with great advantage for the same purpose. They are 

 the shrub Yellow Root {ZaHt/uirtii::a apiifolia),-a.Tnemhev oi the 

 Crowfoot Family, and the fragrant Sumach (Rhus aromatica). 

 The Zanthorhiza inhabits tlie shady banks of streams in the 

 Allegheny Mountains. It is a low and very hardy shrub, witli 



erect stems twelve to eighteen inches high. The flciwers are 

 small, polygamous, brownish purple, and arranged in short, 

 compound drooping racemes, which appear with or just before 

 the pinnate leaves from large terminal buds. The plant 

 spreads rapidly by the development of stems from the stout 

 roots, which, as well as the bark, are intensely yellow 

 and very bitter. It is a free-growing plant in cultivation and 

 an excellent dwarf under-shrub, easily increased from seed 

 or by division. The Fragrant Sumach is one of the best plants, 

 if not the very best, to connect, in this climate, a mass of larger 

 shrubs, with the turf of a lawn. It is low and spreading and 

 feathers out over the grass in pleasant, irregular masses of 

 pale green, and is never obtrusive with flowers too conspicu- 

 ous for such situations, or with inharmoniously colored foliage. 

 The minute yellow polygamo-difficious flowers, in clustered cat- 

 kin-like spikes, precede the leaves, which are trifoliate, pubescent 

 when young, thicker and almost coriaceous at maturity, the 

 leaflets unequally cut toothed, the middle one wedge- 

 shaped at the base. They are fragrant when crushed. Rhus 

 aromatica is a native of the northern and north-western States, 

 where it inhabits dry, rocky hillsides. It flourishes in any 

 garden soil, and can be easily propagated by layers, or from 

 seed, which is very sparingly produced and not easy to obtain. 

 The leaves in autumn are brilliantly colored in orange and 

 scarlet. This plant is too little known and appreciated in 

 gardens. 



The leafless branches of the Spice-bush {I.indera Benzoin) 

 are covered with dense compound clusters of bright yellow 

 flowers. This is a tall and pungently fragrant shrub, which is 

 easily cultivated, and recalls, at a little distance, the European 

 Cornelian Cherry {Cornus masiu/a). Its early flowers 

 brighten low, damp woods and pond sides through the North- 

 ern States. 



Andromeda foribunda, one of the hardiest of the broad- 

 leaved evergreens peculiar to the Allegheny Mountains, is 

 loaded with racemes of pure white, handsome flowers. It is 

 a desirable plant, which forms in cultivation a dense, leafy 

 shrub, four or five feet high, and which will grow in. nearly all 

 soils and exposures. A^'slight covering in winter of ever- 

 green boughs protects it from burning, and is of general ad- 

 vantage to the plant, and this is t.rue, in this climate, of nearly 

 all broad-leaved evergreens. 



The Mayflower or Trailing Arl.iutus [Epigcea repens) is now 

 wellestal:ilished in the Arboretum, and is in fuUflower — almost 

 ten days later, however, than in the woods at Plymouth, where 

 it abounds. It is a prostrate, trailing and scarcely woody 

 plant, with evergreen, rounded, reticulated -leaves and deli- 

 ciously fragrant, rose colored flowers in small axillary clusters. 

 It is the best known and most popular wild flower of New 

 England, and efforts to cultivate it are often made. The May- 

 flower, however, is extremely impatient of confinement and 

 can be naturalized in new localities only with the greatest care. 

 Young plants (it is useless to try to transplant old plants) 

 should be taken up late in September or in October, and care- 

 fully potted or planted in shallow boxes, in a compost of sandy 

 peat, and then kept in a close atmosphere in a green-house or 

 frame until new roots are formed. The plants can then be 

 wintered in a cold pit, but should not be planted out until the 

 second spring, by which time they will be strong and vigorous 

 and able to take care of themselves. They will do best if 

 planted on the north side of a hill in a compost of rather light 

 sandy soil mixed with leaf mould. When once it has a firm 

 hold of the soil, the Epigiea will spread rapidly, and will 

 repay tlie labor necessary to establish it. J. 



May 7th. 



The Forest. 

 Tlie Pennsylvania FiU'estiT Association. 



THE annual meeting of this active society was held in 

 Pliiladelphia on the e\-ening of May 3d, with 

 Burnett Landreth in the chair. The first address was by 

 Dr. N. H. Egleston, of the Department of Agriculture, on 

 the EE'sthetics of tree culture. Mr. J. B. Harrison was the 

 next speaker, and after a cordial allusion to the poetic 

 beauty of the address which had preceded his own, he 

 said, in substance : 



" Our chief interest in forestry is, of course, in the preserva- 

 tion and reproduction of trees for the most common uses, and 

 we have to deal with large masses of forest in their relation to 

 the water supply of vast areas of country, and with forestry in 

 detail, in the case of woodlands in the hands of individual citi- 

 zens. It is encouraging to see so many people drawn together 



