Jm-Y i8, 1888.1 



Garden and Forest. 



241 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, iS 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGF. 



Editorial Articles :— Water Lilies.— The Artistic Aspect o£ Trees. III.: 



Color =41 



Among the Pines in June Utrs. Mary Treat. 243 



Window Gardening 7- D. W. French. 243 



Foreign Correspondence :— London Letter "'. Goldriiig. 244 



New or Little Known Plants :— Amelanchier oligocarpa Serena U'atsan. 245 



Plant Notes: — Two Interesting Willows 246 



Pyrus salicifolia 246 



Cultural Depart.ment :— The Vegetable Garden William Falconer. 246 



How to Grow Quinces 247 



Orchid Notes; — Orchids in Bloom at North Easton, Massachusetts A. D. 21,1 



Odontoglossum nebulosum. — C>'pripedium Parisliii. — Dendrobium chry- 



sotoxum suavissimum. — Angrascum falcatuin F. Goldring. 248 



Notes from the Arnold Arboretum 248 



The Forest : — Notes on the Longevity of Coniferous Tree Seeds, 



Robert Douglas. 250 



Correspondence 250 



Hardy Fruit Trees 7- L. Btidd. 251 



Recent Publications 251 



Periodical Literature 251 



Notes 252 



Illustrations: — Water Lilies in the Garden at Euitenzorg 245 



Amelanchier oligocarpa, Fig. 41 247 



Water Lilies. 



THERE are no plants perhaps which can be cultivated 

 in the United States with less trouble and with more 

 pleasure than Water Lilies ; and certainly no plants create 

 more admiration when they are seen in perfection. 



The natural conditions here are peculiarly favorable to 

 them. Shallow ponds with muddy bottoms in w^hich the 

 burning rays of our summer sun raises and maintains the 

 temperature of the water to almost tropical heat, are com- 

 mon in many parts of the country. Our native Water Lilies 

 flourish in such ponds, which may be made the home, too, 

 of numerous hardy e.xotic species, and in which gorgeous 

 tropical varieties may be set to flower during the summer 

 months. Tropical Water Lilies are grown in heated tanks, 

 too, under glass in some gardens ; and they are often 

 grown in out-of-door tanks which can be heated by pipes 

 from the green-house boiler, if the tenderest species or very 

 early flowers are wanted. Some of the finest varieties can be 

 as successfully grown in a tub of watersunk in a city yard as 

 in the most elaborately constructed and heated tank ; and 

 tubs of these plants plunged in the basins of fountains 

 make the most appropriate and by far the most beautiful 

 ornaments which can be used in such situations. Water 

 Lilies are plants for the poor as well as for the rich ; and 

 their decorative capabilities are almost limitless. The 

 number of species with handsome flowers is already large, 

 and as several species hybridize freely, it is probable that 

 v/e cannot form an idea even yet of the beauty which in- 

 telligent cultivation will develop in these plants. 



The true Water Lilies {Nymphcea) may be divided into 

 two classes : those which expand their flowers in the 

 morning, closing them in the afternoon, and those which 

 bloom only at night. Among those of the first class, none 

 is more lovely than the common fragrant White Lily of 

 the Eastern States {N. odoratd). Its pure white, deliciously 

 fragrant flowers are not surpassed in delicacy and in real 

 beauty by any of the more highly colored and showier 

 flowers of the tropics. This plant is very easily established 

 in muddy, shallow ponds by simply pushing bits of the 



root down into the mud, and it is one of the best Water Lilies 

 to grow in a tub, when if planted in very rich soil it 

 will produce an abundance of flowers all summer long. In 

 the autumn the water should be turned off and the tub 

 stored in a cellar or pit out of the reach of hard freezing. 

 There is a pink flowered variety of the common Water 

 Lily found in a pond in the town of Sandwich in ;Mas- 

 sachusetts. The flowers are much esteemed and sell 

 for high prices, although really far less beautiful than 

 the white ones. It is as easily cultivated as the typical 

 plant ; and when transplanted into other ponds it still 

 produces its pink flowers. Nymphcea tuherosa, a native 

 of the region from western New York to the Jlissis- 

 sippi, where it inhabits shallow ponds and sluggish 

 streams, is a handsome species with tuber-bearing 

 roots, large bold leaves and pure white flowers, sometimes 

 ten inches across. They are quite devoid of odor, how- 

 ever, and although this is a very hardy, free-growing 

 plant, soon spreading over large areas, it has not the charm 

 and will never supersede its humbler eastern rival. The 

 yellow flowered Water Lily of Florida is hardy too at the 

 north, anil will flower abundantly if a warm situation and 

 deep soil are selected for it. It is not a very showy plant, 

 however, and the interest which it excites lies in the pale 

 yellow color of the flowers (an unusual color in Water 

 Lilies), rather than in their beauty, and in its history. For 

 years it was only known by the picture joined to one of 

 the plates in Audubon's "Birds of Atnen'ca," while its ex- 

 istence was doubted and denied. This sketch was 

 made by the lamented naturalist, Leitner, one of the 

 first victims of the Seminole war, and it is only within 

 recent years that it was made known to botanists through 

 the exertions of our associate, Mrs. Treat, by whom and 

 by Mr. Curtiss it was introduced into cultivation. An in- 

 teresting article from Mrs. Treat's pen, in w^hich the finding 

 of N. flava is described, was published with illustrations 

 in Harper's Magazine, volume 55, page 365. 



The European Water Lily {N. alba) is hardy in the North- 

 ern States, as are its varieties N. alba candidissima and rosea. 

 The first of these varieties is the most beautiful of the Euro- 

 pean Water Lilies. It has large, pure white flowers with 

 more waxy petals than our common Water Lily, and when 

 o-rown under favorable conditions of soil and temperature 

 it produces its flowers during a longer period. They are 

 quite odorless, however, and these plants will probably 

 never be cultivated here except by persons who desire to_ 

 form a general collection. More attractive is the dwarf 

 Water Lily of China and Siberia {N. pygmiSa)—3. hardy 

 plant with miniature fragrant white flowers which remain 

 open only during the afternoon. 



The number of tropical Water Lilies is large. A few of 

 them can be grown in the Northern States in artificially 

 heated tanks only, but some of the finest flower freely in 

 shallow ponds if they are started in heat and then trans- 

 planted into large boxes or tubs of rich soil, which should 

 be plunged, when the water has become warmed by the 

 sun, without disturbing the roots. Many of these too 

 make excellent tub plants, producing flowers profusely 

 through August and September. 



The Victoria Regia, first cousin of the Nympha>as, the 

 great Water Lily of the Amazon, although generally 

 grown under glass outside the tropics, will, if treated as 

 an annual, and started in early spring in heat, flower at 

 the north in an open heated tank, and produce its enormous 

 leaves and great white flowers in luxuriant profusion. 

 In the Southern States it needs no artificial heat to_ de- 

 velop its beauties ; and we may expect to see, when it is 

 better known, the sluggish streams of Florida and Louisiana 

 become splendid by the presence of this, the noblest of all 

 aquatic plants. Some idea of the beauty which may be 

 given to southern ponds and streams through the cultiva- 

 tion of Water Lilies can be learned from our illustration 

 (see page 245), taken from a photograph of one of the 

 small lakes in the famous botanical garden at Buitenzorg, 

 in the mountains of Java, upon which the Victoria Regia 



