2o6 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 27, 1888. 



a bunch in her hands through one of the crowded streets 

 in a poor quarter of the town — every child will clamor for 

 a share of it, every forlorn and weary woman will eye it 

 eagerly. Or let her take it to a hospital and see what 

 pleasure a single blossom ^\■ill give to a suffering soul. 

 Nature's beautiful belief is indeed the right one — the cases 

 are so rare that they need not be taken into account 

 when a flower is not welcomed, no matter how humble 

 it may be and no matter how devoid of sentiment the 

 eye may seem to be which looks upon it. This is the 

 right belief, and it would be well if we should try to 

 express it as consistently and persistently as nature does. 



As consistently and persistently, and, be it repeated, in 

 as painstaking a way. Not merely when she is coaxed 

 and flattered and things are made easy for her does nature 

 give her flowers, but always and everjavhere, under the 

 most difficult conditions, with the loveliest patience and 

 the most touching care and pains. This, to us of human- 

 kind, is the greatest hindrance to giving ; we do not mind 

 parting with our treasures, but we do mind taking the 

 trouble to dispose of them so that they will benefit otliers. 

 We should be glad enough if our surplus could go by it- 

 self to tenement-house and hospital, but we are too busy 

 or too careless to send it there. We would rather give 

 money, for money can be more easily given. But money 

 vi'ill not take the place of flowers, either in themselves or 

 in that accompanying gift which makes half the excellence 

 of their giving. He who gives flowers gives a bit of sen- 

 timent and S)'mpathy too, and this is valued by the poor 

 and suffering more than all beside. The very child who 

 takes your blossom in the street takes it with a different 

 smile from the one that greets your penny, for he knows 

 or fancies it is given with a different thought. 



In some of our large cities flower-missions have been 

 established with headquarters where flowers may be sent 

 and whence they will be distributed to those who need 

 them most ; and such missions ought to exist in every 

 town, however small. But if they do not exist, a little 

 trouble may well be taken to supply their place V)y indi- 

 vidual effort. And we can all at least give freely as the 

 chance may offer — to the child who brings home a parcel 

 or peeps through the garden fence, to the workman plod- 

 ding at nightfall past our garden to his own dreary home, 

 to the shop-girl, to the poor needlewoman around the 

 corner, to any one and every one whose steps cross our 

 own. The gift cannot be too small to be worth giving — 

 the human being can hardly be too callous to appreciate 

 it or pass it on to some one else who will. 



Some Eryngiitms. 



OUR Eryngiums have the reputation of being a hard 

 genus, but since Mr. Rose and the writer have be- 

 gun to study them in our work upon the North American 

 Umbelliferee, we discover that the difficulty is not to be 

 laid to the species themselves, but to the great confusion 

 in naming them. Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, 

 when one remembers the scattered condition of our litera- 

 ture regarding them. In the absence of the sharp 

 contrasts which are brought out in a presentation of the 

 species all together, collectors may well have become 

 confused, and their errors have naturally become perpet- 

 uated. No genus of Umbellifers seems to have its species 

 more sharply defined than Eryngiurn, and a few remarks 

 about some southern and much confused forms may be 

 helpful to botanists. In Plautie Lindheiineiiancu Dr. Gray 

 first unravels a bad tangle of synonymy, and clearly de- 

 fines certain species which had before been perplexing, 

 and A\-hich haA-e been equally confused since. Our com- 

 mon E. Virgiiiianum was first referred by Linnaeus to his 

 E. aqualkum as a A'ariety, but was distinguished as a 

 species and set up under its present name by Lamarck. 

 Michaux then ga^'c to the American forms of Linnseus' E. 

 aquaticum the name of E. yucca>follum, and referred to E. 



aquaticum another plant which Elliott afterward described 

 as E. Mrginianum, but which was not the plant of Lamarck 

 bearing that name. In PL Lindh., 209, therefore, Dr. 

 Gra}', lecognizing the establishment of E. yiiccixfoliuni, 

 !\Iichx., and E. Virginianum, Lam., gave to Michaux's E. 

 aquaticum and Elliott's E. ]'irginianuiii the name E. prceal- 

 lum, and also separated from E. Yirginianum another 

 species which had been confused with it, and called it E. 

 Ravenellii. As might be expected, E. J'irgitiianuTn, E. 

 prcealhnii and^. Ravenellii have been confused ever since. 



E. Virginianum, Lam., is a slender plant, from one to 

 three feet high, with lanceolate leaves, the lower on very 

 long fistulous petioles, bracts as long as the head, bract- 

 lets with three spiny cusps (the middle one largest) and 

 prominent, acuminate-cuspidate calyx-lobes, equalling or 

 exceeding the bractlets. The species occurs along the 

 margins of ponds and streams from New Jersey to Florida, 

 and thence to Texas. Mr. Canby sends forms from Del- 

 aware, with bracts longer than the heads, but in every 

 other respect they conform to this species. 



E. piiFallum, Gra)r, is a very stout plant, from four to six 

 feet high, with radical leaves narrowly oblong (not unlike 

 those of a Rumex), often \\\o feet or more long, including 

 the long petioles, bracts two ^r three times longer than the 

 head, bractlets as in the last and longer than the calyx- 

 lobes. It is f(5und in tide swamps from North Carolina to 

 Georgia. The so-called E. pr^altuni of Florida is another 

 species. 



E. Raveneilii, Gray, is slender, from one to three feet high, 

 with linear, elongated, nearly terete (conduplicate) leaves, 

 the lower ones twelve to eighteen inches long, bracts as 

 long as the heads, bractlets with three strong and equal 

 spiny cusps, short, mucronate calyx-lobes, and long, 

 rigid styles. Formerly credited only to the wet Pine-bar- 

 rens of South Carolina, with Ravenel as collector, it is 

 now found to grow near Apnlachicola, Florida, collected 

 by Dr Chapman. These Florida specimens Dr. Chapman 

 took to be E. Vi/gi/iianui/i, and it was from these, of course 

 more or less modified by publi.'ihed descriptions, that he 

 dre\v tlie characters of the E. Viygiiiianuiii of his IVIanual. 



CrawfoiJsville, Iiid. Jolui M. Coulier. 



Trees and Shi-ubs for a Trying Climate. 



TH]''. word "liardy" as commonly used is a relative 

 term. \\"ith tlie prairie settlers of the north-west it 

 means ability to endure the summer and winter extremes 

 noted briefly in the article " Our Prairie Climate, " in the 

 issue of G.vRDEN AND FoREST for May 30th. Some of the 

 essential characteristics of a truly "Iron-clad" plant here, 

 are these : 



(i) The foliage must be as perfect as that of the Duchess 

 Apple, the Gakovska Pear, oiPopuIus Bolleana, Rosa rugosa 

 or of our native trees and shrubs that do well under cultiva- 

 tion on dry upland prairie. Critical observation under the 

 microscope shows such leaves to be provided with extra 

 rows of palisade cells, and a thick epidermis more or less 

 protected by pubescence. 



(2) The trees and plants with foliage adapted to great 

 extremes of atmospheric heat and moisture are also protect- 

 ed by special structure of the outer bark, and all the parts 

 of the flower are stronger; firmer and thicker, than those of 

 plants developed in more equable climates. We may add 

 that even the fruit of the true "Iron-clad" is protected by 

 a thick epidermis and by more or less pubescence. 



(3) The "Iron-clad" must be as fixed in its habit of 

 growth as a Currant bush or a Hickory. The tree or shrub 

 which can be lured into late growth by our warm, and 

 often wet, autumns, will certainly be injured liy our first 

 norther. 



(4) Our occasional warm south winds of winter and 

 early spring will stimulate the tree or shrub from a climate 

 dissimilar to ours into a feeble movement of sap, to be, 

 perhaps, choked within twenty-four hours by zero weather. 

 Our truly hardy tree must hibernate as perfectly as the 



