178 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 6, 



None of these, however, equal the two old varieties, 

 N. Emperor and N. Empress, raised many years ago by 

 William Backhouse, of Walsingham, by crossing N. Pscudo- 

 Nartissus with its variety with white perianth-segments, A'. 

 hicolor. Narcissus Emperor has immense, clear yellow 

 flowers, while those of N. Empress resemble those of N. 

 bicolor, although much larger and finer. They are stately 

 and splendid plants, with immense deep-cupped flowers and 

 broad, glaucous leaves, and it is not easy to imagine any pro- 

 duct of the soil more beautiful than a great mass of these 

 plants in flower. And yet how very seldom are the finest 

 varieties of Narcissus seen in American gardens, and how few 

 Americans know and appreciate their beauty ! 



Buston, May 20th. C. 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. 

 nPHE beautiful Cherry Plum or Myrobalan is now blooming 

 ■•■ profusely. It is the Cerisette of the French and the 

 Kh'sikptaiiine of Germany. It is a small tree here, hardly ex- 

 ceeding ten feet in height, with upright, unarmed, glabrous 

 branches, the shoots of the previous year covered with chest- 

 nut or yellow-brown bark. The large white flowers appear 

 simultaneously with, or just before, the unfolding of the leaves. 

 They are one-half to three-quarters of an inch across, with lan- 

 ceolate, glandular, reflexed calyx lobes and ovate-oblong, orbicu- 

 lar petals, and are borne on long, slender, glabrous peduncles. 

 The leaves are ovate-acute, serrate, andsometimes slightly pu- 

 bescent on the under side when young. The fruit is small, 

 half an inch in diameter, depressed globular, scarlet, or on 

 one tree in the collection bright, clear yellow, and of rather 

 pleasant flavor. The Myrobalan Plum is an exceedingly hardy 

 plant of no small ornamental value, which is very consider- 

 ably heightened by the fact that, unlike most Plum trees, its 

 flowers and leaves appear at the same time. This tree has 

 long been known in cultivation. Its affinities and its native 

 country even have never, however, been satisfactorily deter- 

 mined. The earlier European botanists, down to the time of 

 Duhamel, supposed that it had been brought from America, 

 but it has no connection with any American plant. Linnaeus 

 considered it a variety of the Common Plum {P. domestica), 

 from which its glabrous peduncles, globose fruit and earlier 

 flowers distinguish it. Loudon refers it also to P. domestica, 

 which he considers to be a cultivated form of the Bullace 

 Plum {P. insititia), from which he considered the Myrobalan 

 to be "the first remove." Koch, an excellent authority in 

 questions relating to the origin of cultivated fruit trees, con- 

 sidered it a form of P. cerasifcra, to which he united 

 the Caucasian P. dhiaricaia — a view which finds some con- 

 firmation in the reflexed calyx lobes of our plant, and in the 

 fact that its flowers are simultaneous with or precede the 

 leaves by a day or two at most. And lastly. Sir Joseph 

 Hooker, while he adopts Koch's name of P. cerasifera, con- 

 siders "that both P. cerasifera and P. domestica are cultivated 

 states of P. insititia," separating, apparently, the former from 

 the Caucasian species. The flowering branch in his figure 

 [Botanical JSIagazine, t. 5934), derived from the gardens of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society, with precocious flowers, densely 

 fascicled on short lateral branches, a character not given, as he 

 himself points out, in any of the published descriptions of the 

 Myrobalan Plum, can hardly belong to this plant.- The Myro- 

 balan Plum, unless Koch's views as to its Caucasian origin are 

 adopted, although cultivated for centuries, is nowhere known 

 in a wild state. A Plum, raised from seed brought from Turk- 

 estan and sent to the Arboretum by Max Leichtlin, is identical 

 with the plants of European origin, but whether the Turkestan 

 seed was derived from wild or from cultivated trees is not 

 known. 



Pruiius Pissardi, a purple-leaved Plum, which of late years 

 has become very common in gardens in this country, is now 

 in bloom, and cannot be distinguished, except in the color of 

 the foliage, calyx, peduncle and fruit, from the Myrobalan 

 Plum. The habit, flowers, fruit and foliage here are otherwise 

 identical in these two plants. Primus Pissardi bears the name 

 of the French gardener of the Shah of Persia, Pissard, who 

 sent it to Europe about 1880. It is said to have originated in 

 the City of Tauris, not far from Teheran, where it is valued for 

 the color of its foliage and for its handsome, blood-red fruit. 



The double-flowered form of Primus Pseudo-Ccrasus is in 

 liloom. It is a very handsome and hardy Japanese Cherry, 

 resembling some of the double-flowered varieties of the com- 

 mon Cherry, from which, however, it may be readily distin- 

 guished by the solitary forked peduncles conspicuouslv bracted 

 at the base and below the forks, and by the emarginate petals. 

 This double-flowered Cherry is one of the most common and 

 most highly valued garden plants in Japan, where many varie- 



ties are known with flowers varying from nearly pure white to 

 pale pink, and with a greater and a smaller number of petals. 

 The single-flowered type of the species, which is pretty gen- 

 erally distributed throughout Japan, and is found also in Man- 

 churia, has not flowered yet in the Arboretum. The double- 

 flowered variety was introduced into Europe from Japan in 

 1864 by Robert Fortune, and has since been described and 

 figured under various names, of which the oldest is Cerasiis 

 Pseudo-Cerasus rosea-plena. It is also known as Cerasus 

 Sieboldi [Revue Horticole, 1866, p. 371), Cerasus Capronia fl. 

 roseo-pleno [Fl. des Scrres x\\., p. 141, t. 2238), and very com- 

 monly in nurseries as Cerasus IFatererii. The best figure will 

 be found in Lavallees " /cones," /. xxxvi. In this country the 

 Japanese Double Cherry is a small tree, rarely exceeding ten 

 or twelve feet in height, with the general habit and appearance 

 of a small Cherry tree. It is very hardy, but does not display 

 much vigor of growth nor flower as freely as the common 

 double Cherry. The deep pink flower-buds and the much 

 paler pink flowers are, however, exceedingly attractive. The 

 branching solitary peduncles sometimes appear clustered, 

 owing to the closeness of the buds upon the ends of stout lat- 

 eral spurs from the wood of the preceding year; and the effect 

 of the flowers is heightened by their contrast with the liand- 

 some bronze-colored young leaves, which are ovate-lanceolate, 

 abruptly acuminate, sharply serrate, six or eight inches long, 

 pubescent when young, but later quite glabrous, the large, 

 conspicuous, three-lobed, pinnatifid, glandular stipules nearly 

 as long as the conspicuously biglandular petioles. The black 

 fruit is described as being the size and shape of a pea. 



Primus Americana, the common wild yellow or red Plum of 

 northern woods and an inhabitant of most gardens in northern 

 New England and Canada, should be mentioned here as an 

 early flowering ornamental plant of very considerable value. 

 It is a small shrubl:>y tree, rarely exceeding twenty-five or 

 thirty feet in height, with thorny, rigid branches, which are 

 now entirely covered with umbel-like clusters of small white 

 flowers with conspicuous scarlet calyx-lobes. Of two forms in 

 the Arboretum, one derived from northern Vermont flowers 

 more than a week earlier than Western plants, upon which the 

 leaves are nearly half grown when the flowers open. The 

 fruit of this species is roundish-oval, yellow, orange or red, 

 and has a pleasant flavor, although the skin is tough and sour. 

 The wild Plum is exceedingly hardy ; it grows rapidly and 

 thrives in all soils and exposures ; and when well grown 

 makes, at this season of the year, an exceedingly attractive 

 and beautiful appearance. 



It is perhaps of interest to note that in the very large col- 

 lection of Spirteas, 5. Thunbergii. one of the most beautiful 

 of the genus, is also the earliest in flower by several days. 

 It is a native of Japan, where it is very common throughout 

 the islands, in elevated valleys and on rocky hill-sides in 

 the mountainous districts. This is one of the few plants 

 which is attractive from early spring to very late in the 

 autumn. No shrub produces a greater profusion of handsome 

 flowers year after year ; its habit is at once compact and grace- 

 ful, and the delicate willow-like foliage of a peculiarly bright 

 and cheerful color throughout the summer, in autumn, long 

 after nearly every other deciduous shrub has lost its leaves, 

 turns first to a deep bronze, and then to a brilliant orange and 

 scarlet color. It is well worth planting for the beauty alone of 

 its autumnal colors. And this is true as well of another 

 Spiraea, which is also a favorite in Japanese gardens, although 

 originallv a native of northern China — the double-flowered 

 form of' 6". prunifolia, which is more often seen perhaps in 

 American gardens than any species of the genus. It is a very 

 hardy plant, which spreads rapidly, soon making a large, 

 dense clump of rig'id, upright stems. It is one of the least 

 beautiful of the Spiraeas, however, in habit, and the small, very 

 double white flowers are not handsome, but the colors which the 

 foliage takes on in autumn are splendid in the depth and rich- 

 ness of their scarlet tints. The single-flowered type of this 

 species is wanting in the Arboretum collection. The ends of 

 the branches of both these Spirseas are sometimes killed back 

 here a few inches in severe winters. Otherwise the plants are 

 perfectly hardyi and never fail to flower profusely. 



Ribes Gordoniani/m is in flower. It is a hybrid, raised many 

 years ago in England, between Ribes aureiim and R. san- 

 guineum, and is a handsome and very hardy plant, with the 

 habit and showy racemes of R. sanguineum, but the flowers are 

 lighter colored. It is by far the handsomest of the Currants 

 which are perfectly hardy here. Among many American spe- 

 cies of this genus now in flower, R. Cynosbati, the wild Goose- 

 berry of our northern woods, may be mentioned as a plant 

 worth introduction into ornamental shrubberies. It is a com- 

 pact shrub, which attains, under favorable conditions, a height 



