June 6, iS88.] 



Garden and Forest. 



173 



called quamash, and is eaten either in its natural state, 

 or boiled into a kind of soup, or made into a cake which 

 is then called pasheco. After our long abstinence this 

 was a sumptuous treat." Seventy-five years afterward I 

 crossed the same trail, still as wild, rugged and inhospit- 

 able as the earlier voyagers had found it, and came out 

 into the same little prairie. The Indian village had van- 

 ished, but heaps of recently gathered Camass roots showed 

 that the Indians still frequented the place, \vhile marks of a 

 mowing machine upon the grass were equally sure evidence 

 of the near neighborhood of some white settler. Lewis 

 and Clark in their narrative make frequent mention after- 

 ward of "quamash flats," and upon their return took 

 back with them the specimens upon which Pursh founded 

 the species Plalangiuni Quamash. This name Lindley 

 subsequently changed to Camassii esculen/a, the Camassii 

 being a Latinized form of the Indian name quamash or 

 caf/iass. 



nerves. It is described as growing on mountain slopes, 

 instead of in meadows, and the bulb is nauseous, pun- 

 gent and inedible. The iigure on page 174 has been 

 drawn by Mr. Faxon from a specimen "that has recently 

 flowered at Cambridge. ^. W. 



Plant Notes. 



The Ginkgo Tree. 



THE Ginkgo tree, as it is generally seen in this country, 

 especially in the Northern States, where the climate 

 is perhaps too severe for its full development, has rigid 

 branches, and a stiff and not particularly attractive habit of 

 growth, M'hich make it difficult to use this tree satis- 

 factorily in connection with other trees of less formal out- 

 line. As it approaches maturity, however, under favorable 

 conditions, the Ginkgo, as our illustration on page 175, 



The Couit-yard of Chailecote Hall. — See paj^e 171 



In 1 810 Nuttall collected what he believed to be the 

 same species "near the confluence of Huron River and 

 Lake Erie," and afterward near St. Louis and on the 

 banks of the Ohio. This eastern form, which ranges south- 

 ward into Te.xas, was separated by Dr. Torrey and is 

 known as C. Fraseri. The original Camass is abundant 

 in many low meadows from Idaho to the Pacific, and 

 has been an important article of food to the native inhab- 

 itants. On the lower Columbia a third species, C. 

 Leichllinn, is found, which has an equally nutritious root, 

 and still a fourth species has been recently discovered 

 in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, by Mr. W. C. Cusick, 

 of which a figure is here given. 



This is the stoutest and most vigorous grower of all 

 the species, with a large bulb, numerous broad glaucous 

 and somewhat undulate leaves, and a flowering stem 

 two or three feet high. The flowers are of a delicate 

 very pale blue, the petals spreading regularly, crinkled at 

 the narrow base, and with three, or rarely five, faint 



representing the noble specimen in the famous gardens of 

 the Villa Carlotta, on the shores of the Lake of Como, 

 shows, is a really beautiful and graceful tree, which will 

 hardly be recognized by persons who have only seen it in 

 a comparatively young state in parks and gardens in the 

 Northern States. Most of the specimens in the United 

 States still require time, probably, in which to develop their 

 real beauty, but that they can in time attain the same 

 graceful habit of growth, if not the same dimensions, as 

 the tree we figure, the fine specimen planted in the first 

 years of the century by Dr. Hosack, on the banks of the 

 Hudson, at Hyde Park, amply testifies. 



The Ginkgo, apart from its beauty, is a tree of very gre.-it 

 interest, owing to thepeculiarities of its botanical charactLTS. 

 It is one of the family of Conifers, but unlike the mem- 

 bers of that family with which we are most familiar in 

 this countr)^ its leaves are deciduous, broad and fan- 

 shaped, and instead of a cone, the fruit is a fleshy drupe, 

 containing a large stone resembling tliat of an .\pricot. and 



