July 25, 1888.] 



Garden and Forest. 



263 



the branches should be shortened in one or two feet all 

 over the trees ; or if they are already large more of the 

 branches even can be cut away with advantage.^ED. ] 



Nymphasa tuberosa in Eastern Waters. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir.— Recently Mr. E. D. Sturtevant, of Bordentown, N. ]., 

 the well-known Water Lily expert, called my attention to the 

 fact that the Water Lilies growing near my home were not 

 the familiar NyinphcEa ocforata, liut the western form, iV. 

 tuberosa. I have gathered a number of rhizomes and many 

 flowers, and find tliat the former all have the rootstocks with 

 compound and single, spontaneously detaching tubers, as 

 given by Gray as characteristic of A", tuberosa. The flowers 

 are much less strongly scented; some nearly inodorous and 

 have no pinkish tinge. 



Leaves, flowers and roOtstock are all, as a rule, if not invari- 

 ably, smaller than the dimensions given by Gray, and suggest 

 that the plant found here bears the same relation to the true 

 N. tuberosa that N. odorata, var. minor, does to tlie true N. 

 odorata ; so it might be called N. tuberosa, var, parva. 



The nearest recorded locality for A', tuberosa is Meadville, 

 Penn., fully 300 miles as the crow flies. 



The Nymphcea odorata grows most luxuriantly about Morris- 

 ville, Pa., opposite Trenton, N. J., and in various localities in 

 the neighborhood of the city mentioned. It is a curious fact, 

 therefore, in plant distribution, that this western form should 

 be found here in central New Jersey, and only, I believe, over 

 a very limited area. ' Charles C. Abbott. 



Trenton, N. J., July 7th, 188S. 



To the Editor of Garden and Forest : 



Sir.~In your article on Prunus pendula, in No. 17 of Garden 

 and Forest, you state that tlie meaning of the Japanese 

 name Itosakura is pendulous. Permit me to say that 

 that is hardly a literal translation of it. The first syllable, Ito, 

 means thread, twine, raw silk, and the like, and the word 

 sakura is the nanie of the Cherry tree; hence Itosakura would 

 more accurately be rendered the' Thread Cherry Tree— having 

 reference to its long thin branches. 



Referring to Dr. Hepburn's Dictionary of the Japanese Lan- 

 guage I find the ordinary word for pendulous, having refer- 

 ence to a tree with pendulous branches, is Shidari, and is 

 illustrated by the word Shidari-yanagi, the name of the Weep- 

 ing Willow. I may also state that'l sent Prunus pendula to 

 Messrs. Parsons & Sons as early as 1874 or 1875, with wliom it 

 has been flowering for several years'past. 



New York, July 7th. 



TIlOS. Hogg. 



Periodical Literature. 



In the Fortnightly Rcvie-w for June Mr. Oswald Crawfurd 

 writes in a very charming way of "Summer Time in Rural 

 Portugal." The picture he paints of country life in this beau- 

 tiful but little known corner of Europe is an attractive one all 

 through, but the most attractive parts of it are those which re- 

 veal the peculiarities of its gardening art. "The three sum- 

 mer months," writes Mr. Crawfurdi " are so hot, and mostly 

 so dry, that gardening in the north of Europe fashion, with 

 turf, and flower-beds put out therein, is possible but not easy. 

 Perhaps it is for this reason that Portuguese gardeners are 

 about the very worst and most ignorant in the civilized world, 

 —knowing almost nothing of potting, and soils, and cutfino-si 

 and grafts, and forcing, and the management of 'cdass,' . . ? ! 

 yet the gardening traditions of the Portuguese, in^pite of their 

 Ignorance, are good, and much of their gardening doctrine 

 sound. No Portuguese, either in practice or in theory, would 

 admit, for instance, that monstrous proposition which every 

 English gardener insists upon as a postulate too obvious for 

 argument, namely, that a garden is a place for flowers as a 

 turnip-field is a place for turnips. The Portuguese gardener, 

 to judge by his results here, considers, and I think justly, that 

 flowers are mdeed very pretty adjuncts and ornaments in a 

 ^u J "'£'^"'°^'"'^"'*^^>'''=^®® importance than the walks, the 

 shade of branching trees, the greenery of leaf and spray, the 

 cooling breezes in summer, the warmth of the sun in winter, 

 and at all seasons the golden fretwork that the sunlight makes 

 upon the ground throuijh overhanging^ boughs." As almost 

 everything in this part of the world 'is a survival, Mr. Crawfurd 

 explains, so are Peninsular gardens survivals of the Moorish 

 Ideal of what a garden should be, modified by the require- 

 ments of the country and climate. The ideal of the Moor in 



the hot and arid lands of his nadvity means as much "shade 

 and coolness and moisture" as can be obtained, — thick bowers 

 and vistas of foliage, plashing fountains, trickling rills, and 

 "creeping Roses and Jasmine bushes to beget the perfume 

 that his soul loves." In Portugal "so much shade is not 

 wanted and the garden is more open," yet in the matter of 

 predominant foliage as well as in many matters of arrange- 

 ment and decoration, Moorish ideas are still clearly percepti- 

 ble. " The Oriental delights in the intricate interlacing of 

 flowing lines and arranges his Box edgings in elaborate ara- 

 besque patterns. Those who know Spain know the Escurial and 

 must remember the exquisite tracery of tlie great Box garden 

 there, like the gold wire rims in rich i^/o/jowwi? enamel. Another 

 survival of Moorish times is the wall running by the garden 

 paths, hand high, faced with painted tiles {azulejos), along 

 whose top is scooped a deep furrow filled with garden earth 

 and planted mostly with Carnations, Pinks and Gilliflowers, 

 or the dwarf scented purple Iris of Portugal. All these plants 

 love the drought ; and so set their flowers can be plucked or 

 smelled to without bending the back — an ingenious device of 

 the ease-loving Oriental." 



"In such pleasaunces as these," the author continues, "as 

 Lord Bacon says of his own ideal garden, is to be found ' the 

 greatest refreshment to the spirits of men,' and indeed I know 

 no other commodity of a garden whatever than to reach this 

 end." Then lie proceeds to contrast such pleasaunces at 

 length, and with strong expressions of reprobation for the 

 northern ideal, with " the unlovely receptacles for flowers cut 

 out in the turf, bare earth, dreary, like new-made graves for 

 nine months of the year, swept by the east wind in winter, 

 burned up by the sun in summer, and in late spring the con- 

 tents of green-houses turned into them to make a tawdry un- 

 harmonized display of color" which almost invariably do duty 

 for gardens in England. " I freely confess," he adds, " that 

 it humiliates my national jiride to contemplate the pleasure 

 gardens of my English friends ; even to pass by train in sum- 

 mer-time through the land and see no garden that is any ' re- 

 freshment to the spirits' save those of the cottagers." It is 

 impossible here, however, to follow Mr. Crawfurd through his 

 analysis of the appearance of such gardens as rule in Eng- 

 land (and, of course, in America as well), or of the causes 

 which bring it about. We can only say that his words are full 

 of instruction and pass to his concluding paragraphs, which 

 contrast the summer-time effect of the open country in Portu- 

 gal and in England. In an English June, he says, while the 

 garden is " poor and bare. and overtrim," the wood is rich and 

 beautiful in its luxuriance. In Portugal at the same season 

 the garden is shady and luxuriant, but the country is burned 

 bare of all flowers save the Cistus, and almost the only trees 

 which appear are the forests of great Stone Pines. The love 

 for such forests, which seem at first to an Englishman dry and 

 dreary and solemn tilings, grows with time ; but it is always a 

 different love from that inspired by a northern greenwood. 

 " If the Pine forest has its charm it nuist he as the higher kinds 

 of music and the subtler sorts of literature have theirs, only 

 to him whose taste is instructed to the point of receiving the 

 higher and subtler impressions. An English woodland . . . is 

 charming in its way, a very ' pretty and purling stream' kind 

 of thing ; but it is as one of Strauss's waltzes to a symphony 

 of Beethoven compared witli the austei'C Ucauty l)f the great 

 Pine forests of Portugal." 



Recent Plant Portraits. 



LiSSOCHILTJS giganteus, Gardener's Chronicle, May 19th. — A 

 terrestrial Orchid, discovered in the Congo country by Wel- 

 witch. The peduncle of this wonderful plant is said to reach 

 in its native country a height of sixteen feet. It bears a lax 

 raceme of large yellow and green flowers twice the size of 

 those of Warrea tricolor. In his work on "The Congo," Mr. 

 Johnston gives some interesting particulars relating to this 

 extraordinary plant. He says : 



" In the nrarshy spots, down near the river shore, arc masses 

 of that splendid Orchid, Li ssochil us giganteus, a terrestrial spe- 

 cies that shoots up often to the height of six feet from the 

 ground, bearing such a head of red mauve, golden, scented 

 blossoms as scarcely any flower in the world can equal lor 

 beauty and delicacy of form. These Orchids, with their lisht 

 green, spear-like leaves, and their tall swaying flower-stalks, 

 grow in groups of forty and fifty together, often reflected mthe 

 shallow pools of stagnant water round their bases, and filling 

 up the foreground of the high purple-green forest with a blaze 

 of tender peach-like color." 



PiNUS Halepensis (Catkins and Stamen), Gardener's Chroni- 

 cle, May igth. 



