May 30, 18S8.] 



Garden and Forest. 



165 



purple, long-tubed flowers, nearly an inch across. It is a native 

 of damp woods along the Alleghany Mountains from Pennsyl- 

 vania to Kentucky and Georgia. It is a hardy and desirable 

 plant in cultivation, flourishing alike in shade and in full ex- 

 posure to the sun, forming a dense, carpet-lilce mat. It is 

 a good plant to use in covering the ground among shrubs in 

 the rock garden, and is very easily increased by division. 



The Twin-leaf [Jeffersonia diphylla) is a perennial, glaljrous 

 herb of the Barberry family. It sends up in early spring long, 

 petioled leaves, divided into two half-ovate leaflets and naked 

 one-flowered scapes. The handsome flowers are white, about 

 an inch across, and are composed of four deciduous sepals, 

 eight oblong, flat sepals, eight stamens, a two-lobed stigma, 

 and an ovoid, pointed ovary. The pear-shaped pod opens 

 horizontally near the middle, the upper part making a sort of 

 lid. The Twin-leaf is an inhabitant of rich woods from 

 western New York to Wisconsin and southward. It is attrac- 

 tive in foliage as well as in flower, and will flourish in any 

 garden border. It is easily increased from seed, and by the 

 division of the matted, fibrous roots. The genus Jef- 

 fersonia, of which a second species occurs in Manchuria, was 

 named by Dr. Barton in lionor of Thomas Jefferson. 



The Mitre-wort (Mitella dipltylla) is a common inhabitant 

 of northern and western woods, where it is found in vipland 

 situations in deep rich soil. A mass of this graceful little 

 plant is a pretty object in the sliadiest part of the rock garden, 

 where it throws up its tall, slender racemes of small, wliite 

 flowers, before the leaves on the over-hanging trees appear. 

 It has hairy, acute, heart-shaped, lobed and toothed, pale 

 yellow-green leaves. The slender scape bears near the middle 

 a single pair of small, opposite, sessile, acute leaves — a charac- 

 ter from which the specific name of this species is derived. 

 The Purple Trillium is a less showy and less attractive plant 

 than Trillium grandiflorum, referred to in the last issue, but 

 it is worth a place in the shaded rockery for the peculiar 

 deep, dark, dull-purple color of the large Howers. It is a very 

 common plant in rich woods, especially at tlie north. 



The Canadian Violet {]'iola Canadensis) deserves a place in 

 every garden. It is a beautiful plant, witii leafy stems, one or 

 sometimes even two feet high and with white flowers tinged 

 with violet. It is common in northern woods and on the 

 Alleghany Mountains, and takes kindly to cidtivation, spring- 

 ing up froni self-sown seed in the shade and in the most 

 sunny and exposed parts of the garden. 



Boston, May 13th. C, 



Notes From the Arnold ArbcMX'tuui. 



Ribes saxatile is the earliest of the Currants in flower. It 

 was the first shrub in tlie Arboretum to unfold its leaves. A 

 native of Siberia and lc>ng known to botanists, it is not often 

 found in gardens. R. saxatiU is a very distinct, hardy, free- 

 blooming shrub, two or three feet higli, with erect branches 

 covered with scaly reddish bark, and leaves, when the plant is 

 in flower, of a delicate pale yellow-green color. The small 

 yellow flowers are produced in short erect racemes. The 

 fruit is small, spherical, bright red, acid and hardly edible. 



Ribes alpinuin, a red-fruited Currant common in the elevated 

 deciduous forests of northern and central Europe, and of Rus- 

 sian Asia, where it sometimes forriis a dense undergrowth, 

 Ijloonis here a few days later. It is a dwarf unarmedshrub, 

 two to three feet liigh, with broadly ovate, serrate, lobed leaves 

 and erect glandular-pubescent racemes of small flowers and 

 large, handsome scarlet insipid fruit. This plant from a horti- 

 cultural point of view possesses little interest except in the 

 fact that it is one of the few hardy shrubs that will flourish 

 "under trees in a comparatively dense shade. 



Two species of /v';7;6'j- from our northern woods are also in 

 flower — R. rohcndifolium, with smooth or sometimes downy, 

 round, heart-shaped, lobed leaves, slender peduncles, each bear- 

 ing I to 3 small greenish flowers, and small unarmed fruit 

 of agreealsle flavor. The second species is the Fetid Currant 

 {R. prosiraiuiii), with long, prostrate, unarmed stems trailing 

 over the ground, deeply heart-shaped, lolied, doubly serrate 

 leaves, and small greenish flowers borne in slender erect 

 racemes. The pale red fruit is glandular bristly. The habit 

 of this plant would give it a considerable garden value, in spite 

 of the disagreeable odor it emits when bruised, were it not for 

 the fact that when removed from its home in cold damp woods 

 to more exposed and sunny situations, its leaves become dis- 

 figured by a fungus early in the season and often drop by mid- 

 summer. 



Ribes aiireuni, the Buffalo or Missouri Currant, of which 

 several garden forms of no special interest are now cultivated, 



is'in flower. It is a tall, glabrous, unarmed and very hardy 

 shrub, 6 to 8 feet high, common from western Missouri to Ore- 

 gon, with three-Iobed leaves and briglit golden-yellow flowers 

 in many-flowered racemes. The yellow fruit, which turns 

 brown or nearly black when fully ripe, has a pleasant but 

 rather insipid flavor. This is one of the hardiest and most 

 easily grown of all shrubs ; it will thrive in poor, sterile soil 

 and under the sliade of trees ; situations where it is often dif- 

 ficult to make shrulis flourish. But the handsomest species 

 of the collection and perhaps the handsoniest of the genus is 

 Ribes sanguineuin, a native of Oregon and northern California, 

 where it is common on tlie rocky banks of streams. Like 

 nearly all the woody plants from that region it is not thoroughly 

 hardy in New England, and must be carefully covered to pro- 

 tect the flowering wood. It is an unarmed shrub 4 to 8 feet 

 high, with heart-shaped, five-Iobed, serrate leaves and long 

 drooping racemes of deep rose-colored flowers in the axils 

 of large red bracts. The fruit is sub-globose, glandular, 

 hirsute and unedible. Several varieties of some horticultural 

 interest have originated in gardens, of which the most distinct 

 are the var. atrorubens, with smooth, deeper colored flowers, 

 and the var. jnalvaeeiiin (R. jualvaceuin), with leaves hispid 

 above, covered below with white tomentum. 



Two Bush Honeysuckles {Xylosteoit) of our North Atlantic 

 Flora, Lonicera cileata and L. ca'rulea, are flowering. The 

 former is a delicate and pretty shrulj, which inhabits rocky 

 woods from Massachusetts to Wisconsin and far nortii- 

 ward. It sometimes attains a height of 5 feet, with erect 

 or straggling branches, oblong-ovate leaves on slender 

 petioles and rather large greenish-yellow flovi'ers, produced in 

 pairs on long single, axillary peduncles. The berries are red. 

 L. ccerulea is a dwarfer plant rarely exceeding two feet in 

 height; it is found in bogs from Rhode Island to Wisconsin 

 and nortliward. It has oval leaves, pubescent when young, pale 

 yellow flowers on short peduncles, their ovules later united 

 into a single large, handsome, blue fruit. The two species 

 take kindly to cultivation and are not particular about soil or 

 exposure. They are interesting additions to any collection of 

 shrulis. 



Ostryopsis Davidiana is blooming in the Arboretum for the 

 first time. It is the only representative of a genus of the 

 Ciipiiliferce, closely allied to the Hazels ; indeed some au- 

 thors have included it in that genus, from which it is distin- 

 guished by its female inflorescence. This is a small ainent, 

 terminal upon the branches of the year, composed of ovate, 

 leafy, two-flowered bracts, each flower enclosed in a leafy, 

 coriaceous, lobed involucel, split on the ventral side, and in a 

 tubular membranaceous exterior involucre toothed at the sum- 

 mit and analogous to the leafy covering of the hazel nut. The 

 fruit, borne in clusters of six or eight at the extremities of the 

 l)ranches, is dry and indehiscent, and is enveloped in the per- 

 sistent, striated, pubescent involucre. The nut is conical, ob- 

 tuse at the summit, about half an inch long and crowned 

 with the persistent stigmas. The male flowers, which are 

 similar to those of the Hazel, are produced from the wood 

 of the previous year. O. Davidiana is a graceful and perfectly 

 hardy shrub, two or three feet high, with alternate, ovate-cord- 

 ate, sub-acuminate leaves, pubescent on the under side. It is a 

 native of Mongolia, where it was discovered by the Abbe 

 David, and of the mountains in the neighborhood of Pekin. It 

 grows freely in any garden soil and rec|uires no special culti- 

 vation or care. A beautiful figure (A 3) was included by M. 

 Lavallt^e in his "Arboretum Segrezianiim." 



Corylopsis paueifiora, now in bloom, is a native of Japan and 

 a member of tlie Witch-hazel family. It is a dwarf deciduous 

 shrub two or three feet high, with short pendulous racemes of 

 yellow flowers, which appear before the leaves in the axils of 

 large sheathing bracts, and which in structure resemble those 

 of the Witcli-hazel. This is a very compact, handsome 

 plant of real ornamental value, which should be seen more 

 often in gardens. 



Two hardy Apricots are in bloom — a wild form of Prunus 

 Armcniaca, the original of the cultivated Apricot, found by 

 Dr. Bretschneider on the mountains near Pekin, and common 

 in northern China and Mongolia — a handsome erect shrub 

 three or four feet high, of which there are two specimens in 

 the Arboretum, one witli pale pink, the other with nearly pure 

 white Howers, which precede the rounded, sub-coi'date, ab- 

 ruptly acuminate, serrate leaves, and small yellow or red, thin- 

 fleshed, edible fruit. The second is the Siberian Apricot, 

 which botanists now consider a geographical variety of the 

 last. It is a taller plant, sometimes 20 feet in height, with a 

 much lighter colored bark, and stouter branches, which are 

 covered with pure white or pale pink flowers, preceding the 

 ovate-acuminate leaves borne on eglandular petals, and small, 



