1 86 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 13, 1888. 



stems and spinulose leaves. For the embellishment of 

 rock-work in regions where they would not be exposed 

 to severe frost (though they might in colder countries be 

 pulled up and laid away for the winter on a dry shelf), 

 these radiate-stemmed Selaginellas may be made of great 

 service. C. G. Pringle. 



No true \\'ater Lily (NyinphLva) was known to the flora 

 of Pacific North America until June of last year, when Mr. 

 John B. I>ieberg discovered in a pond in northern Idaho 

 a very pretty and distinct species that Mr. Thomas Mor- 

 ong, in the May issue of the Botanical Gazette, describes 

 under the name of Castalia (the name which some bota- 

 nists are anxious to see adopted in place of Nymphcea) 

 Liebergi. It is a diminutive plant with white odorless 

 flowers about an inch and a half in diameter when fully 

 expanded. Mr. Morong points out the resemblance of 

 the Idaho plant to Nympluva pyginaa, a native of Siberia, 

 China and Japan. The extension of this genus into west- 

 ern America is a fact of no little interest from the point of 

 view of geographical botany. 



A Sonora Hillside. 



THE illustration on page 187 will give our readers a 

 pretty accurate idea of the general appearance of 

 much of the desert countr}' in southern Arizona and the 

 adjacent parts of north-western Mexico. It represents one 

 of the low, granite foot-hills of the Sonora Mountains near 

 the head of the Gulf of California. This is one of the most 

 barren and inhospitable regions of the North American 

 Continent. For fifty miles inland from the Gulf, sandy 

 plains, which near the coast are shifting sand-dunes, alter- 

 nate with numerous chains of low mountains trending with 

 the coast — vast piles of volcanic rock, sprinkled o\'er with 

 a little fine soil. These desert mountains are absolutely 

 treeless except in occasional caiions, where a little soil, 

 washed down from the slopes above, has enabled the Mes- 

 quit and the Ironwood {OIneya) to obtain a foothold, and 

 to drag out a miserable existence. The base of these for- 

 bidding mountains, and the lower hills and broad, gently 

 swelling mesas which support them, are covered with more 

 soil than the higher slopes, and produce a striking and ex- 

 tremely interesting Cactus vegetation. Mr. Pringle, almost 

 at the perd of his life, and only with great suffering to his 

 animals from scarcity of water and absence of forage, 

 made a careful botanical surve)'' of this region during the 

 summer of 1884, and our illustration of a Sonora Hill is 

 from one of a series of photographs which he was able to 

 make during this journey. The tall, grotesquely branch- 

 ing cylindrical plant scattered over the hill is the Snwarroiv 

 of the Mexicans [Cereus giganleus), the tallest of the Cactus 

 family, often exceeding a height of sixty fe<.t, with a 

 diameter near the ground of two feet. The handsome 

 white flowers appear only at the very top of the tall 

 shaft, and quite encircle the summit. The skeleton con- 

 sists of a number of stout perpendicular ribs, only 

 slightly attached together, and composed of hard, solid 

 and durable wood, upon which time and exposure seem to 

 make very little impression. They may be found scat- 

 tered about on the desert, where the plants have died or 

 been cut by Indians in order to secure the edible fruit. 

 The fleshy covering soon disappears by decay, but the 

 skeletons remain hard and sound They afford the best 

 material produced in this region for the rafters of huts or 

 for small posts, and the Mexicans gather them in large 

 quantities from the desert for these purposes. The stiff, rigid 

 clumps among the SuKwrow on the hillside are plants of an- 

 other large Cactus, widely branching at the ground from a 

 single crown — Ceretis Thurberi — one of the interesting dis- 

 coveries of Dr. George Thurber, who, as botanist attached 

 to the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey Expe- 

 dition, first explored what is now the extreme southern 

 portion of Arizona, and parts of Sonora. Although closely 



allied to C. giganteus, C. Tliurbeii \s a much smaller plant, 

 the clustered stems rarely rising to a greater height than 

 fifteen feet. The flowers, like those of C. giganteus, are 

 greenish \\'hite, l)ut the tube is narrower and more elon- 

 gated, and they appear, not at the summit of the stem, but 

 in a circle about one foot below it ; and the fruit, like the 

 ribs of the stem, are thickly beset witli clusters of black 

 spines. It was found also by Mr. Schott in Sonora, shortly 

 after its discovery, but from that time (1851) was not seen 

 again in a wild state by any botanist until Mr. Pringle visited 

 this part of Mexico in 1884. Cereus Tliurberi was atone 

 time in cultivation from seed brought home by Dr. Thurber, 

 and it may still be found, perhaps, in some of the European 

 collections. There seems to be no record, however, of its 

 flowering in cultivation. The large Cactus wiih tall, cylin- 

 drical stems in the lower left-hand corner of the picture is 

 another Cereus {C. Schottii), a plant which, from a widely 

 branching or stoloniferous base, throws up numerous 

 stems, ten to fifteen feet high, and six inches in diame- 

 ter. They are five to seven angled, armed in the sterile 

 part of the plant with short, and on the fertile upper 

 branches with long, pendulous spines, which form a red- 

 dish gray beard, in which the flesh-colored flowers and 

 oval, purple fruit are hidden. There are scattered over the 

 hillside, too, numerous dwarf specimens of a leguminous 

 plant, Parkinsonia inicrophylla, which, under more favora- 

 ble climatic conditions, sometimes attains the habit and 

 the height of a small tree, and of Bursera microphylla, both 

 plants able to put forth and maintain their minute leaves 

 during a few weeks under the burning [Mexican sun, which 

 here so heats the rocks in summer that the human hand 

 cannot bear contact with them. The large bush in the 

 lower right hand corner is a small plant of the so-called 

 Green-barked Acacia, the Palo Verde of the Mexicans, one 

 of the most conspicuous plants of the desert, and, next to 

 the IMesquit, the most famdiar, perhaps, to travelers in 

 the whole Boundary region from Texas to California. 

 The Pato Verde sometimes becomes a tree of considerable . 

 size ; and it is always a most striking and conspicuous ob- 

 ject owing to the perfectly smooth, light, bright-green bark 

 which covers its stem and branches. It remains through- 

 out the long, dry and heated season perfectly leafless, but 

 with the midsummer rains puts out tiny leaves, and soon 

 becomes brilliant with a profusion of handsome, bright yel- 

 low, pea-like flowers. C. S. S. 



Cultural Department. 



Annuals for a Succession of Flowers. 



GARDENS should now be bright and gay; every empty 

 spot should have been filled and planting shoidd have 

 been finished. But there will soon come a time when 

 many gaps will occur, and it concerns us now to prepare 

 material with which to fill them. Many annuals are of brief 

 duration. Among these are Nemophila, Collinsias, Virginian 

 Stocks, Clarkia, Lupins, Poppies, Hawkweed and Ten-week 

 Stocks. After a few months many annuals — for instance, 

 Drummond Phlox, Gaillardias, Zinnias, Mignonette, and many 

 more — lose their trim shapes, and it is best to clear them away 

 and recover the ground with fresh plants. When Hollyhocks, 

 Larkspurs, Foxgloves, Canterbury Bells and Sweet Williams 

 have done blooming and are rooted out or cut away, something 

 is needed to occupy the space they filled. 



To keep the garden filled, sow at once a fresh set of annuals, 

 and keep them readv to fill up empty spaces as they occur. 

 African Marigolds (tlie Eldorado strain) are capital for filling 

 into places recently occupied by other plants, and they will keep 

 in bloom till frost destroys them. The cucumber-leaved Sun- 

 flower [Hclianthus cucuinerifoliiis) and Cosmos bipiniiatus may 

 also be used in the same way. The latter, however, should be 

 grown and starved in pots till its flower liuds are set before it 

 is planted out. Raise some fresh dwarf French Marigolds and 

 Petunias to plant in dry ground, as these thrive in such places 

 where many other annuals would perish. Snapdragons in 

 bloom now if cut back wovild bloom again in the fall, but not 

 in such perfection as young plants raised now from seed. 

 China Asters from seed sown now will bloom in September 



