226 



Garden and Forest. 



[July 4, 1888. 



pubescent ; the flat cymes of small, white flowers, which, in 

 cultivation, are produced in the greatest abundance, appear at 

 tlie ends of the voung- Itranches. The fruit is dark purple or 

 nearly black. \'iburnuii! piibescens is found along the borders 

 of woods from western Vermont to Wisconsin, extending south 

 to New Jersey and Kentucky. It is very hardy and flourishes 

 in good garden soil. Like so many North American shrubs, 

 it has been too much neglected as a garden plant. 



And this is true as well of the Sheep-berry, Vibiirinun Lentago, 

 a very handsome, small tree, or tree-like shruli, which some- 

 times attains a height of twenty-live or thirty feet, with a clear, 

 straight trunk, supporting a round compact mass of foliage. 

 It has large ovate, s Iiarply pointed leaves, three or four inches 

 long, closely and sharply serrate, and borne on long margined 

 petioles, which, like the buds, are covered with brown scurf. 

 The broad flat cynies, four or five inches across, of small, creamy 

 white flowers, are sessile. The black, oval fruit, half an inch 

 long, ripens in the late autumn, and has an agreeable, but rather 

 insipid flavor. The wood of this species has a most disagreea- 

 ble odor. Viburnum Lentago is a common northern plant, 

 widely and generally distributed from the shores of Hudson 

 Bay to Georgia and Missouri, attaining its liest development 

 far north, and found generally in deep, rich soil, along the 

 borders of swamps or streams, or on high rocky ridges. The 

 compact habit of this plant, its handsome foliage and showy 

 clusters of flowers, entitle it to general cidtivation. 



I'ibiirnum mairocephaluni, of which the form with all the 

 flowers sterile only is known, is not often seen here. It was 

 discovered by Robert Fcirtune in gardens at Slianghai and 

 Chusan, and has always been rather a favorite plant in Eng- 

 land. Here it is perfectly hardy and flowers every year, al- 

 though it does not grow with any vigor, or produce its cymes 

 of pure white flowers, which are generally mistaken for those 

 of a white-flowered Hydrangea horicnsis in much profusion. 

 It is a low shrub, with rigid, wide-spreading branches, covered 

 with smooth, light gray bark, and rather smallj pale, oval 

 leaves, with small remote teeth, and covered on the under 

 side with stellate pubescence. It is usually grafted on Vibur- 

 num Lantana, and must then be constantly watched to prevent 

 the stock from sending up suckers, which rob the plant of 

 what little vitality it possesses here. 



Among plants of recent introduction of the very first class, 

 from an ornamental point of view, must be mentioned Lon- 

 icera Albcrti, a dwarf Honeysuckle, discovered a few years 

 ago by Dr. Alljert Kegel in tlie high mountains of eastern 

 Turkestan. It is one of the Bush Honeysuckles, and is a 

 low, smooth plant, with long, slender, spreading, pemiulous 

 branches, which only rise a foot or two from the ground, but 

 soon make a wide, graceful mass of light green foliage. The 

 leaves are deciduous, opposite, glaucous, linear oblong, ob- 

 tuse, entire, or with one or two teeth near the base, from an 

 inch to an inch and a half long, and are borne on short peti- 

 oles. The fragrant flowers are produced in pairs on short 

 a.xillary pedtmcles ; tlie cylindrical tube of the rosy lilac cor- 

 olla is four times longer than the calyx, with a spreading limb 

 of five nearly equal, ovate-elliptical lobes, about three-quarters 

 of an inch across when expanded. Lonicera Alberti is a per- 

 fectly hardy plant of easy cultivation; it is admirably suited for 

 the margins of shrub beds, where its graceful branches can 

 spread out over llie turf, for the rock-garden, or for covering 

 rocky banks. 



Lonicera I\Ia.xiinowiczi is another handsome Bush Honey- 

 suckle now in flower. It is a native of the mountain forests of 

 eastern Manchuria. Here it makes a neat bush, with upright 

 Ijranches three or four feet high, covered with pale gray liark. 

 The leaves are light green and shining above, paler on tlie 

 lower side, which is covered with long, slender hairs ; they 

 are an inch and a half or two inches long, and hardly exceed 

 the slender peduncles, which bear two bright, rose-colored 

 flowers, the limb deeply two-parted, the upper division tliree- 

 lobed. This is a very hardy plant, worth a place in a large col- 

 lection of shrubs. J, 



June 15th. 



The Forest. 



The Forest Vegetation of North Mexico. — V. 



TURNING away at last from Chihuahua and the region 

 stretching along the line of the railroad far north- 

 ward and still farther to the south — a region made familiar 

 by two seasons of diligent searching out its scanty vegeta- 

 tion over wide and weary desert areas of mountain" and 



plain — a region rich only in the matchless tints of its land- 

 scape and the floods of white sunlight overspreading all — 

 we set out joyfully for a fresh tield amidst the western 

 Sierra Madre. 



Following the route of Wislizenus, the early explorer, on 

 his involuntary journey from Chihuahua to Cusihuiriachic, 

 as nearly as a wagon road can follow a bridle trail in its 

 devious course over the mountains andthrough theircafions, 

 we cross three chains of mountains with intervening plains 

 or valleys of such character and bearing such forest vege- 

 tation as has been described. Beyond Carretas our road 

 mounts a high mesa, whose marginal bluffs are covered 

 with an open growth of low Oaks and Junipers of the spe- 

 cies already mentioned. The gullies, which cut into the 

 mesa from every side, are occupied by the same growth, 

 and from the gullies the trees scatter out over the adjacent 

 mesa for a short distance ; but they appear to have been 

 unable to gain a foothold on the central area of the mesa. 

 Some ten miles further on, however, where the mesa, 

 gradually ascending, terminates in a broad ridge, its sum- 

 mit, as well as its slopes, is covered with a thin forest. 

 Here, then, in our journey up to the mountains we have 

 reached, at an elevation of 6,000 feet, the timber line. 

 Descending fr<im the mesa by a steep and tortuous grade, 

 our road enters a wooded cafion of a pine covered range, 

 and winding up through it, crossing its swollen stream 

 thirty times in a distance of seven or eight miles, threading 

 its narrow intervales and clambering over its frightful 

 ledges, brings us after a journey of seventy-five miles to 

 the old mining town of Cusihuiriachic, noted among bot- 

 anists as being the place where Wislizenus was held pri- 

 soner of state, as he styled it, from Sept. 13th, 1846, till the 

 3d of March following, restrained during most of that time 

 within limits five miles from the town. 



La Bufa towers over the cailon, through which straggles 

 the town, a sharp peak whose summit is little less than 

 8,000 feet elevation, the highest point of the divide within 

 view. Southward the divide lies amongst a broad belt of 

 mountains, confused and abrupt upheavels of porphyritic 

 rock, coA'cred with forests of Conifers and Evergreen Oaks, 

 which to eyes grown weary of the bare ranges to the east- 

 ward, seem luxuriant. As the slopes of the Bufa and the 

 hillsides of its immediate vicinity have doubtless suffered 

 deforestation from an early day, to supply the needs of the 

 town and its mining furnaces founded in the beginning of 

 the eighteenth century, it is probable that "Wislizenus, who 

 had no time for collecting on his forced ride from Chi- 

 huahua, in those forests first made the acquaintance of 

 Pinus sfrobiforinis, P. E7igelinaniii and P. Chihtmhuana, 

 three species published by Engelmann in Wislizenus' Re- 

 port of his Mexican journey. The Arbutus mentioned b}'' 

 Engelmann in connection with these Pines nearly answers 

 the description of A. petiolaris, HBK. ; the Juniper may 

 be either f. occideii/alis, Hook., var. conjugans, Engelm., or J. 

 pachyphioea, Torr., both of which areof common occurrence 

 in this district ; and the dwarf Evergreen Oak is perhaps 

 Quercus ohloiigifolia, Torr. ; but the mention of a Thuya 

 must have been an error. That Wislizenus should not 

 have secured specimens of Quercus hypoleuca, Engelm., 

 Q. grisea, Leibm., Snd Q. fulva, Leibm., even on the Bufa 

 common with small specimens of several of the above, sur- 

 prised me ; as did the finding, during my stay of five days 

 in that vicinity, of more than a score of herbaceous plants, 

 which have remained undescribed until recent years. But 

 this shovv's the unfavorable circumstances, lamented by 

 Wislizenus, under which his remarkable collection was 

 gathered. 



Northward from the Bufa for a few miles the divide is 

 but a broad swell connecting two great plains, which are 

 more widely separated farther north, where the divide rises 

 again to an altitude of perhaps 9,000 feet. The plain lying 

 east of the divide sweeps down beyond the horizon to the 

 laguna of the deserts near the Rio Grande ; that to the west, 

 twenty or thirty miles wide and one hundred and fifty^long 

 north and south, rimmed on one side by the divide and on 



