288 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 8, j888. 



A dozen plants of the new Cypripcdiuin I'c/laiiiln in, rQccnily 

 described in this journal, were exhibited by the Messrs. Low 

 at a late London flower show. Every one of them bristled 

 with flowers, tending- to prove the floriferous quality claimed- 

 for the plant liy its introdu 



A statue is to he erected to the memory of the French bot- 

 anist, Planchon, in the town of Ganges, not far from Montpel- 

 lier, and in the centre of a Grape growing region, once devas- 

 tated by the Phylloxera, to whose investigation and to the 

 study of the Vine he largely devoted tlie last years of liis useful 

 life. 



The Royal Horticultural Society of London will give no 

 more certificates for new varieties of tulierous Begonias. 

 The committee holds that siimething like perfection has been 

 reached in this direction, and that hereafter not an inrlividual 

 variety, luit the particular strain of varieties, shovdd lie com- 

 mended. 



The rcmarlcable specimen of tlic new variety ol Catth-ya 

 Gigas, described in anolhcr column, lias been added to tlie 

 rich collection of F. f^. Ames, Esq. Altiiough it had lieen in 

 bloom quite three weeks when it was sent to N"orth Easton, 

 the flowers were in perfect condition when it arrived at its 

 new home. 



Six thousand bushels is the average annual crop of pears 

 yielded Ijy three of the larger orchards in Essex County, New 

 Jersey. This year the crop will hardly reach two hundred 

 bushels. The failure is attributed, by some fruit-growers, to 

 unfavorable weather when the trees were in bloom, which 

 prevented the proper fertilization of tlie ovule. 



Some idea of the dependence of Great Britain upon French 

 gardeners will be gained from the fact, published in tlie Journal 

 of Horiiculttirc, that during the year 1885 there were shipped 

 to England from the little port of Roscoff, in Brittany, 11,107 

 tons of Potatoes ; 4,060 tons of Onions ; 4,000 tons of Cauli- 

 flowers; 1,800 tons of Artichokes. 



Probably the largest specimen of Todca harbara,rx Fern with 

 a thick, woody stem, peculiar to Cape Colony, Australia and 

 New Zealand, ever sent to Europe, has recently been received 

 at the Jardin des Plantes in f^aris. It weighs nearly 600 pounds, 

 and the stem, from which spring sixty clusters of fronds, is 

 four feet hig'h, six feet long, and nearly four feet wide. It is 

 said to lie in good condition. 



It is claimed that the first exhil;)ition devoted exclusively to 

 the Chrysanthemum was held at Toulouse, and that more than 

 6,400 flowering specimens of this popular plant were collected 

 at the exhibition which tocik place in that city three years ago. 

 An exliiliition of these plants, under the auspices of the Socicte 

 d' Horlicultiirc de la Haittc-Garonne, will beheld there this year 

 from tlie 15th to the iSth of November. 



In the Grass and Forage Garden at the Storr's School Agri- 

 cultural Experiment .Station, Connecticut, are growing seventy- 

 five species and varieties of grasses, legumes and other fod- 

 der plants ; besides this, a number of sods have been set out. 

 The farmers of the State are invited to send samples of sod 

 from old meadows and pastures, six inches square, with a 

 view to test the different grasses from all parts of the State. 



A letter to a daily paper appealing for contributions to the 

 New York Flower Mission, the work of which was recently 

 described in our columns, states that on a single day last 

 month 1 1,425 bunches of flowers were distriliuted among the 

 poor and sick. Another centre for the reception and distribu- 

 tion of flowers has been opened at Police Headquarters, 303 

 Mulberry Street. Wherever gifts may be sent it is desirable 

 that they should be enclosed in old boxes or baskets which 

 need not be returned. It is hardly necessary to add that fruits 

 will be as welcome as flowers. 



On the day of the late Emperior Frederick's funeral (June 

 iSth), the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the botanist Karl 

 Sigismund Kunth was celelirated in the Jerusalem Church-yard 

 at Berlin by the BotaniiSal Association of the Province of Bran- 

 denburg. Kimth's reputation rests upon his labors in describ- 

 ing tlie plants collected by Alexander von Humboldt and Aime 

 Bonplanil, upon the examination of the Passalagua collection 

 of vegetable remains from Egvptian tombs, and especially 

 upon his classical " Eiimitci-atio Plantaruinr Kunth was 

 well known in his life-time as a student of garden plants and for 

 many years was Professor and Vice-Director at the Botanical 

 Garden in Berlin. His death occurred in the year 1S50. 



The Rcvuc Hortuolc calls attention to the fact that the formal 

 arrangement of plants has been abandoned in the flower-beds 

 seen this year in the city of Paris. Such beds are now 

 usually surrounded with a formal row of plants of one variety; 

 the remainder, except in the case where the bed is divided 

 into compartments by means of lines of color, being en- 

 tirely filled with various combinations of flowering or foliage 

 plants, grouped naturally and without formal arrangement. 

 Some of the combinations of the plants, made by the Paris- 

 ian gardeners, are far more attractive than the formal ribbon- 

 fiorder style of arrangement so universal in the United "^'"tes 

 and in England. 



A correspondent of a San Francisco paper in Paarl, in Cape 

 Colony, says, that the Colony annually exports about 50,000 

 cases of Everlasting Flowers, worth some twenty dollars a 

 case, half of which go direct to New York and Boston. The 

 flowers are gathered by the Kaffirs, chiefly in the Draken- 

 stein Mountains, about fifty miles from Cape Town, and are 

 lirought to the country storekeepers, who dry them in long 

 sheds, from the roof of which they are suspended in bunches 

 in order that the warm wind may pass freely among them. 

 The Kaffirs go out in families in the gathering season, and 

 the women and children do most of the work, which is by 

 no means easy, as they must follow unfrequented paths, and 

 their half-naked bodies are sadly bruised by the stones and 

 thorny bushes among which the plants are found. A certain 

 amount of actual danger is also involved in the work, as 

 life is often risked to obtain choice specimens growing on the 

 verge of precipices. 



A telegraph wire is the last thing one would expect to sup- 

 port vegetation of any kind ; yet a traveler in Brazil writes to 

 a German horticultural journal describing a crop of Mistletoe 

 which he found clothing the wires not far from Rio Janeiro. 

 At a distance, he says, the wires appeared fringed with what 

 he supposed were the leavings of a recent flood. But a per- 

 ception of their height soon removed this idea, and upon ex- 

 amination the fringe proved to be composed of thousands of 

 little Mistletoes, firmly fixed to the wires from which they de- 

 pended. Many species of this family flourish in Brazil, and 

 some of them, called "Bird-weeds" by the people, thickly in- 

 fest fruit-trees and other cultivated plants and bear large ber- 

 ries which are greedily devoured by birds. These seeds are 

 deposited on the telegraph wires in the birds' droppings and 

 quickly take root, and' although the plants perish, naturally, be- 

 fore very long, they are succeeded by others, and the curious 

 Mistletoe fringe is perpetuated. 



A private letter from the chairman of the California For- 

 estry Commission speaks encouragingly of the work already 

 accomplished by the commission. Important additions to the 

 foi'est map have lieen completed during the present season ; 

 the nurseries established a few months ago liy the commis- 

 sion, under the charge of Mr. Thomas H. Douglas, already 

 contain 300,000 young forest trees for distribution through the 

 State, while lands valued at from $60,000 to $80,000 have been 

 presented to the commissioners by pirivate parties to enable 

 them to inaugurate and carry on experiments in forest plant- 

 ing. Satisfactory progress has been made also in stopping 

 the stealing of timber from Government and State lands, and 

 the setting of forest fires, which have long threatened the very 

 existence of the California mountain forests. The efforts of 

 the commission have had, however, the result of forcing 

 lumbermen and speculators to take up Government timber 

 lands, and the sales of such lands during the last year are un- 

 precedented in amount. 



At a recent Saturday exhibition (July aSth) of the Massachu- 

 setts Horticultural Society, a collection of Achimenes shown 

 by Mr. N. T. Kidder, of Milton, attracted much attention. 

 Better grown, cleaner and better flowered plants have proba- 

 bly never been seen in this country. The collection contained 

 specimens of Mauve Queen, with very large flowers of great 

 substance, and the handsomest variety shown, although not 

 so covered with flowers down to the base of the stems as 

 some others, Carl Schurz, Grandiflora, Longiflora, Bronzoni, 

 Dazzle, Admirafion and Eclipse. Achimenes, although they 

 are less commonly seen here than they were a few years ago, 

 are excellent plants for the summer decoration of green-houses 

 and conservatories. To the same exhibition a splendid plant 

 of Sobralia iiiac7-antha, one of the noblest of terrestrial Orchids, 

 was sent from the garden of Mr. John L. Gardner. It was 

 more than seven feet high, with a dozen and a half of its lovely, 

 great, purple, aromatic flowers expanded. This is one of 

 the few Orchids which combines stately habit, handsome and 

 abundant foliag-e, and showy flowers. 



