June 13, 18S8.] 



Garden and Forest. 



189 



beautifully crested. This is a hardy plant, spreading rapidly by 

 creeping root-stocks, and admirably suited for the border of 

 wood-walks and other rough parts of a garden, where it can 

 more than hold its own against weeds and grasses. 



Arnebia cchinoides is one of the most showy of the hardy 

 perennials now in flower. It is a native of Armenia and a 

 member of the Borage Family, nearly allied to Lithospcrmum. 

 The stems, which grow from si.x to twelve inches high, are 

 terminated by large, one-sided, solitary spikes of hantlsome, 

 primrose-colored flowers, marked at first with purple spots 

 in the sinuses between the lobes of the corolla, but which 

 entirely disappear at the end of a few days. The sessile, al- 

 ternate leaves are ciliated on the margins like the stems. 

 Arnebia echinoides may Ije increased from cuttings made 

 from the stems and from the roots, and it is easily raised from 

 seed. 



Aubrc/ia dcltoidcs is one of the prettiest of hardy, spring- 

 blooming rock-plants. It is an evergreen trailer, with terminal 

 few-flowered racemes and small rhomboidal leaves, which 

 just now is covered with sheets of handsome, pale purple, 

 four-petaled flowers, half an inch across. It requires 

 deep soil and rather an open exposure, where it can 

 spread through the crevices between the rocks and send its 

 trailing stems over their surface. It can be easily increased 

 by cuttings and from seed, which, if sown as soon as ripe, 

 will make strong flowering plants by autumn. 



Scilla Hispanica, or, as it is generally known in gardens, 

 Scilla campaniilata, is the latest of the genus here in flower, 

 , blooming with the Poet's Narcissus, the two being excellent 

 plants to associate together in beds or wild wood-borders. 

 The flowers are deep blue, bell-shaped, half an inch deep, race- 

 mose, and spreading nearly at right angles from the slender si.x 

 to twelve flowered scape, which is eiglit to twelve inches high, 

 and springs from a rosette of linear strap-shaped leaves. 

 There are varieties with white and with flesh-colored flowers. 

 It thrives in dry and in comparatively wet soil ; and it is one of 

 the best of the hardy bulbs which can be naturalized here in 

 grass along the borders of woods and wood-walks. 



Orniilwgahim nutans, the Satin Flower of some old New 

 England gardens, is such an old-fashioned flower that few 

 people nowadays know it. And yet it is a beautiful and a 

 very hardy plant, which has been growing in this garden for 

 over forty years ; and during all these years its modest flowers 

 have given fresh and ever increasing delight. It is a bulbous 

 plant of the Lily family, a native of southern and central 

 Europe, with four or six strap-shaped, flaccid leaves, and a loose 

 raceme of five or six large, nodding, bell-shaped flowers. 

 They are an inch long, with broad, petaloid filaments; the seg- 

 ments of the perianth are white, broadly flushed with pale green 

 on the outside, smooth and shininglikesatin, and less spreading 

 than in otherspecies of this genus. The Satin Flower flourishes 

 in all soils, in the full exposure to the sun and under the dense 

 shade of overhanging trees and bushes. 



Among Pffionies the earliest in bloom is one of the single- 

 flowered forms of P. tenuifolia, with rather broader leaf seg- 

 ments than are found in the typical plant. The single-flowered 

 variety of this handsome south Russian plant is much less 

 often seen in gardens than that with double flowers, althougli it 

 iscertainlyfar handsomer and more attractive; and this is true 

 of all Pa:onies, vi-hether herbaceous or shrubby, that the single 

 are handsomer than the double flowers, although double- 

 flovi'ered varieties are almost invariably grown in American 

 gardens. P. tenuifolia produces solitary, dark crimson, cup- 

 shaped flowers, surrounded by the crowded, reduced upper 

 leaves, terminal upon stems twelve to eighteen inches high; the 

 leaves, of which there are fen or twelve upon each plant, are 

 cut into narrow, one-nerved, confluent segments, which vary 

 in width from one-twelfth to one-fourth of an inch in different 

 varieties. P. tenuifolia is a perfectly hardy plant of the very 

 easiest cultivation, 



Boston, May 25th. C. 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. 



'"PHE number of plants in flower in the Arboretum this 

 -*- week is not large. Among the Barberries, one of the 

 earliest in bloom is the form of Berberis znilgaris from north- 

 ern China and Manchuria — the var. Aniurensis, or Berberis 

 Amurensis of some authors. Of the many forms of the com- 

 mon Barberry now cultivated this is one of the most distinct, 

 interesting and valuable from a garden point of view. The 

 leaves are much larger than those of the common Barberry 

 and the stems are stouter and more rigid, although the Chinese 

 plant will not attain probably its height and dimensions. 

 Indeed, Maximowicz, in his "Flora Amurensis," describes it 



as a low shrub, rarely more than three feet high, a stature 

 which the Arboretum plants have already surpassed. The 

 flowers are somewhat larger than those of the common Bar- 

 lierry, possessing their delicious fragrance, and appear here 

 fully two weeks earlier. This is one of the most desiraljle 

 of the perfectly hardy deciduous shrubs of comparatively recent 

 introduction. It is a free-growing plant which can be readily 

 increased by cuttings or division, or from seed, which has not 

 been produced yet on the plants in this collection. 



Every lover of nature in America, and nearly every gardener, 

 knows the Great Laurel, or, as die people who inhabit the 

 southern Alleghany Mountains, where it grows with a per- 

 fection and beauty unknown elsewhere, call it, the " Ivy," but 

 the little northern Swamp Laurel, Kalmia glauca, is less 

 known. It is, nevertheless, wdien in flower one of the hand- 

 somest of the small shrubs of North America, where it is 

 found from the Pennsylvania Mountains far northward, always 

 in cold peat-bogs. Kalmia glauca rarely exceeds a foot in 

 height ; it has a loose straggling habit, narrow sessile, oblong, 

 revolute leaves, white glaucous on the lower side, and ter- 

 minal, few-flowered, smooth corymbs of large and very showy 

 lilac-purple flowers. It is not an easy plant to establish in 

 cultivation, although when once established and left to grow 

 without any effort being made to improve its habit by pruning 

 (which seems fatal to it) it will flower freely year after year. 

 Great care is needed in taking up young plants for cultivation, 

 which should be thoroughly rooted in pots or boxes before 

 they are planted in the garden. Kalmia glauca is now well 

 established in the Arboretum, where it has flowered for several 

 years. 



Much more easily cultivated is the beautiful Rhodora, which 

 botanists now refer to the genus Rhododendron, as R. Rhodora. 

 The Rhodora which is one of the best known and best loved 

 wild flowers of New England, can be easily transferred to the 

 garden from the cold northern swamps, which at this season 

 of the year are tinged with its handsome rosy flowers. It is a 

 low deciduous shrub, two or three feet high, with oblong 

 leaves, downy on the lower side, and appearing later than the 

 umbel-like terminal clusters of flowers. It requires a deep 

 peaty soil, in which it will soon spread, and make large clumps. 

 Fothergilla alnifolia is too rarely seen in gardens. It is a 

 low and very hardy shrub belonging to the Witch-hazel family, 

 with showy terminal, catkin-like spikes of small flowers, with 

 numerous'long, projecting white stamens. They are the only 

 conspicuous part of the flower. It has no petals and a small 

 bell-shaped calyx. The oval or obovate leaves, smooth, or 

 pubescent on the lower side, appear later than the flowers. 

 The Fothergilla, although not found growing naturally any- 

 where north of Virginia, is perfectly hardy here. 



Clematis (Atragene) verticillaris,:\. rare plant confined to the 

 mountainous or far northern part of the country from northern 

 and western New England and Virginia to Wisconsin, is the 

 earliest of the genus in flower here. It is a woody climber 

 with stems six or eight feet long, trifoliate leaves, and large, 

 handsome blue or purple spreading flowers, two or three 

 inches across, which in the mountains appear sometimes with 

 the melting snows. This plant requires ordinary garden soil, 

 and no special cultivation. 



The earliest of the brambles in flower is also an American 

 ^\an\.—Rubus triflorus, the dwarf wild Rasijberry of northern 

 swamps and woods, with annual herbaceous stems six to 

 twelve inches high, handsome ovate-lanceolate, doubly-serrate 

 leaves, pointed at both ends, and one to three flowered clusters 

 of white flowers followed by small inedible fruit. It is an ex- 

 ceedingly pretty little species, which, when established, makes 

 a neat" compact mass of foliage, well worth a place on the 

 borders of the shrubbery. 



Ribes multiflorum is a Hungarian species rarely seen in gar- 

 dens. It is a handsome shrulj at this season of the year, with 

 numerous upright and spreading branches three or four feet 

 high, long-petioled, three or four lobed leaves, which are dark 

 green and glabrous above, lighter green and very pubescent on 

 the lower side ; and long, dense, pendulous racemes of green 

 flowers. The fruit is red and about the size of a pea. The 

 plant, although more interesting than showy, might well lie 

 cultivated more frequently. A beautiful figure of it (A 31) will 

 be found in Lavall(5e's " Icones." 



Ribes Uva-crispa is a smoofli-fruited plant which botanists 

 consider one of the wild forms of the common Gooseberry. 

 It is a low shrub with rigid branches two or three feet high, 

 densely armed with stiff yellow prickles, small, orbicular, pal- 

 mately divided leaves, hairy on both sides, and with green 

 flowers, hanging singly or in pairs from little tufts of green 

 leaves. The berry is small and yellowish. It is found m 

 hedges and open woods of central and southern Europe and 



