212 



Garden and Forest. 



[June 27, 1888. 



and though it should be kept comparatively dry when at 

 rest, a warm house in winter suits it best. 



l.alia flamima is a showy and rare hybrid raised from L. 

 cinnabarina and L. PiUlteri, itself a hybrid. It somewhat re- 

 sembles the foimer in growth, and the flowers are much in 

 the way of L. harpophylla. Our plants are growing freely 

 with the usual Cuttleya treatment, 



Kenwood, N. Y., June 8tli. F. Goldring. 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum. 



T7RAGRANT flowered Maples are not common; for this 

 ^ peculiarity, and for the great beauty of its brilliant autumn 

 foliage, the variety of the well known Tartarian Maple wliich is 

 found in the valley of the Amoor River in Manchuria, is well 

 worth general cultivation. It is the Acer Ginnala, or, as M. 

 Maximowicz now considers it, the Acer Tartaricmn var. Ginnala 

 — a small, bushy tree, attaining here a height of 15 to 20 feet, 

 with bright green, smooth and shining, ovate, serrate leaves, 

 incisely trilobed, the terminal lobe longly acuminate. The 

 yellow, long pediceled, small flowers are deliciously fragrant ; 

 they are produced in rather loose erect axillary racemes. The 

 Manchurian plant differs from the typical Acer Tartaricmn in 

 its thinner and less coriaceous, narrower and more deeply lobed 

 leaves, in which the middle lobe is much longei and narrower. 

 The Manchurian Maple is a perfectly hardy, fast growing 

 plant, whose autumn foliage rivals the Sugar Maple in the 

 splendor of its orange and scarlet tints. It is very easily raised 

 from seed, which has been produced here in great abundance 

 for several years. 



The English Hawthorn is not a very satisfactory tree in this 

 climate, where the summer sun is too hot for it, scorching the 

 leaves, which are preyed upon, too, by several species of fungus; 

 so that it is not unusual to see plants almost entirely destitute of 

 foliage by the end of August. The beauty and the abundance 

 of the flowers, however, must compensate to a certain extent 

 for this drawback to the English Hawthorn here, and of the in- 

 numerable varieties known in European nurseries, none is 

 more vigorous or more satisfactory than a double-flowered 

 scarlet variety, which originated in England not many years 

 ago, and which is known as Paul's Double Scarlet Thorn. The 

 rather small clusters of briglit scarlet flowers are produced in 

 the greatest profusion. 



The American Crab Apple, Pynis coronaria, is less frequently 

 seen in gardens than the Japanese and Siberian apples. It is, 

 however, an ornamental tree of very considerable value and 

 beauty, and it has the great merit of coming into flower ten or 

 twelve days after all the other apples have shed their petals. 

 The American Crab Apple is a small bushy tree, t\venty or 

 thirty feet high, pretty generally distributed through the 

 Appalachian forests from Ontario to Alabama, although not 

 extending into New England and eastern New York. It has 

 serrate or lobed, ovate, somewhat cordate leaves, and broad 

 cymes of pale pink or rose colored (lowers, which are nearly 

 two inches across. The orange fruit, flushed with bright scarlet 

 when fully ripe, is an inch or an inch and a half in diameter; it 

 hangs on long slender stalks, and like the flowers is delicious- 

 ly fragrant ; it is sometimes used for preserving. This tree 

 loaded with fruit in the autumn is hardly less ornamental than 

 at this season of the year. 



The earliest of the Spindle-trees {Euonymns) to Ijloom is an 

 east Asian species, E. alatiis, a widely distributed Japanese 

 and Manchurian plant, remarkable for the wide, corky wings 

 of its branches. It is now covered with small yellow-green 

 flowers in loose, generally three-flowered cymes. The fruit 

 is much less conspicuous than tliat of many other species of 

 this genus, and its greatest merit is the beauty of the peculiar 

 rose color of its autumn foliage, quite unlike that assumed by 

 any American plant, or by any other Japanese pilantin the col- 

 lection. The peculiar corky formation of the branches, which 

 is hardly developed at all upon one variety here, is also interest- 

 ing. Varieties differ very considerably, in the time of flowering, 

 and in the number of the flowers in their cymes. Euonvtjius 

 alatus is very hardy here, soon developing into a handsome 

 compact specimen four or five feet high. It is figured by 

 Regel in his "Flora Ussnriensis," t. 7. The prostrate form of 

 the Strawberry Bush {Euonyinus Amcricanus, vai". obovahis), is 

 in bloom before the other American species. This is a useful 

 subject for the borders of shrubberies and for other positions 

 where it is desirable to connect the turf with higher plants, or 

 to plant as undergrowth under trees. It is seldom used in 

 gardens, however, although by no means a rare plant in much 

 of the regions south of New York and east of the Mississif>pi 

 River. It has long trailing branches which root freely, thin, 

 dull, dark green, obovate leaves, erect flower-stems one or 



two feet high, small greenish purple flowers and rather con- 

 spicuous warty crimson fruit with a scarlet aril. 



Rhammis alnif alius is another dwarf American shrub which, 

 although possessing very considerable merit as an ornamental 

 plant, in its compact habit and handsome foliage, is rarely 

 found in gardens. It is a native of northern swamps, but takes 

 readily to cultivation, soon forming dense, wide-spreadmg 

 clusters of erect stems, a foot and a half or two feet high, 

 clothed with pale yellow-green, ovate, acute, sharply serrate 

 leaves, with prominent veins. The small yellow flowers and 

 the black fruit are not conspicuous. It is now in flower. 



Pyriis ( Aroiiia) arbutifolia, the Chokeberry, is now in flower, 

 and is exceedingly ornamental both in foliage and in flower. 

 There are two distinct forms of this plant, the var. erythro- 

 carpa, with narrow leaves, very woolly on the lower side, as 

 well as the cyme, and purple-red or scarlet fruit, which re- 

 mains upon the branches late into the winter; and the var. 

 nielanocarpa, which is nearly smooth and produces black fruit. 

 Pyrus arbutifolia is a common shrub throughout the eastern 

 part of the Continent from Newfoundland to Louisiana, with 

 slender brandling stems two to ten feet high, covered with 

 grayish-brown bark. The leaves are an inch or- more long, 

 lance-oblong, oval or obovate, tapering at the base, sharply ser- 

 rate, pale and of ten'^downy on the under side when young, 

 dark green and shining aliove, the mid-rib glandular along the 

 upper side. The handsome white flowers, often tinged with 

 purple, and with conspicuous purple or brown anthers, are 

 produced in compound downy corymbs ; they are nearly an 

 inch across when expanded. Those in the red-fruited variety, 

 which is most common in the South, are considerably smaller 

 and appear here fully a week later. The fruit is a five-celled 

 pome, the size of a blueberry, ratlier dry, but sweetish to the 

 taste. The common northern smooth forms, with purple or 

 black fruit, vary considerably in the shape of the leaves and in 

 the size and color of the flowers. Some of these forms are ex- 

 ceedmgly ornamental when in flower, and the variability which 

 this plant displays naturally, makes it not improbable that, as an 

 ornamental plant, it might be greatly impioved through culti- 

 vation and selection. I am not aware that its improvement 

 has ever been undertaken systematically; the field is certaiifly 

 not with(5ut promise. Some of the large flowered forms are 

 often found in American nurseries, grafted as standards on 

 tall stems of the Mountain Ash ; it is, howe\'er, a far hand- 

 somer pjlant if allowed to grow naturally on its own roots, 

 when it forms a tall, upright, and rather compact shrub, \\'hich 

 is beautiful from spring to autumn. 



Of the two species of Hudsonia which are found in the North- 

 ern States, the earliest, H. ericoides, is now in bloom. It is a 

 bushy, heath-like, dwarf shrub, rarely exceeding six or eight 

 inches in height, covered with slender, awl-shaped, greenish 

 leaves, and producing numerous small, fugacious, showy 

 yellow flowers along the upper part of the branches. This is 

 a very common plant along the sea coast of the New England 

 and Middle States, where it often covers broad stretches of 

 dry, sandy, barren soil, making a conspicuous and beautiful 

 appearance when in flower, and later m the season masses of 

 agreeable gray-green foliage. The Hudsonias are not easy 

 plants to estalilish in cultivation, but once established they 

 grow and spread, especially if they can be slightly protected in 

 winter. They are excellent dwarf rock-garden shrubs, or they 

 can be used as a carpet about taller growing plants. 



Ncviusia Alabamcnsis is one of the rarest of North Ameri- 

 can shrubs, being known only in one locality — the cliffs of the 

 Black Warrior Ri\-er, in the town of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. 

 The rarity of this plant, the peculiar structure of its flowers, 

 and its relationship, which Professor Gray pointed out long 

 ago, to the eastern Asian genera, Kerria and Rliodotypos, are 

 sufficient to make its cultivation interesting. The clusters of 

 flowers, moreover, with theirlongwhite stamens, are very beau- 

 tiful, and make this plant a most desirable addition to any gar- 

 den. The Neviusia is a shrub four or five feet high, with 

 erect or spreading branches, short-petioled, membranaceous, 

 ovate, doubly-serrate leaves and solitary or fascicled flowers, 

 which are borne on long, slender peduncles from the extremi- 

 tiesof short lateral branches. They havefoliaceous calyx-lol>es, 

 no petals, and several rows of long stamens, which make the 

 flowers conspicuous and showy. The Neviusia is perfectly 

 hardy here, and may be propagated by cuttings as readily as 

 any of the Spiraeas. It is figured in the sixth volume of the new 

 series of the Proceedings of the America?! Academy of Arts 

 and Sciences, in which will be found a detailed account of this 

 plant audits botanical affinities, from the pen of Professor Gray. 

 Pvrus fennica, a native of the moiuitainous parts of central 

 Europe, and by some botanists considered a natural hybrid be- 

 tween P. intermedia and P. Aucuparia, although reproducing its 



