300 



Garden and I'orest. 



[AuGtrsT 15, 188S. 



of Paklioi for 1878-g, which contains interesting' particulars 

 regarding tlie Star Anise. Of this lie says it is brought to this 

 port for exportation from the province of Kuangsi via Kin- 

 Chow, and that it is produced in two districts — Lung-Chow, 

 on the borders of Annam, and Po-se, in tlie West (or Canton) 

 River, close to Yun-nan. 



"The Star Anise was, according to Hanbury (Pltaniiaco- 

 gyaphia, Ed. 2, p. 22), first ■brought to Europe by the voyager 

 Candish aliout the year 1588, and was first described by 

 Clusius in 1601 from fruits procured from Loudon. It seems 

 afterwards to have been imported via Russia (and hence 

 called Cardamoinuin Sibcriense, or Annis de Siherie), and was 

 used by the Du*ch \\\ the seventeenth century to flavor liever- 

 ages. From China it is exported into eastern Turkestan imder 

 the name of Chinese Fennel, and in China itself it is called 

 Pakh iiiii hia7ig, or eight-horned Fennel ; the fact being that 

 though commonly compared with Aniseed, the taste is really 

 more like that of Feimel, so that the name given by Redi in 

 1675 was Fwnicjthini sinense. 



"In China the Star Anise is employed as a condiment and as 

 a spice, and it is still used to flavor spirits in Germany, France 

 (where it is the flavoring material of Anisette de Bordeaux) and 

 Italy. In England, according to Hanbury, it is used only as a 

 substitute for oil of anise." /. vernm has small, globose 

 flowers, without the long, spreading, inner, perianth- 

 segments of /. nnisatitm or religiosuiu, or of our southern 

 /. Floridaniim, belonging to an entirely tlifferent section of 

 the geruis. 



CiELOGVNE GRAMMINIGOLIA, /. 7006; a graceful specics, with 

 short basal scapes, bearing two or four white flowers, with a 

 three-lobed lip streaked with purple; a native of Moulmein 

 and the representative of a section of the genus widely dis- 

 ti'ibuted through the mountain region of India. 



Cyperorchis elegans, /. 7007; 'this is the Cyiuhidiuin elegans 

 of Lindley, a Himalayan species, with handsome yellow flow- 

 ers an inch and a half long, arranged in a long, dense, 

 pendulous raceme. There are two species of Cypcroreliis, 

 this, and the fragrant, white-flowered C Mastersii. — Botanical 

 Register, 1845, /. 50. 



Notes. 



Sixteen liushels of nuts were gathered last year from two 

 English Walnut trees planted thirty years ago in Contra Costa 

 County, California. 



The fine specimen of the California White Oak {(Juereus 

 lobata) upon Genei-al Bidwell's farm, known as the "Sir Joseph 

 Hooker Oak," to which reference was made on page 275 of 

 Garden and Forest, has a trunk diameter of seven feet and 

 three inches, while the branches spread one hundred and forty 

 feet. 



American inventors are invited to send for competition to 

 the Exhibition of the Imperial Society of Austrian Pomologists 

 apparatus to be used in the cultivation of fruits, and in their 

 subsequent disposition by pressing for beverages, drying, 

 packing and other methods of preservation. Tlie exhibition 

 will be held at Vienna from September 29th to October 7th. 



An interesting sight on the grounds of Mr. Peter Hender- 

 son, Jersey City Heights, is a field of Lima Beans, which are 

 also_ strictly Bush Beans. The plants are erect, from fifteen 

 to eighteen inches high, and bear up sturdily under a heavy 

 load of short, though well-filled, pods. The beans are appaf- 

 enfly identical with the small variety of the Lima known as the 

 Sieva. 



Insect Life is the title of a ncAv periodical bulletin devoted 

 to the economy and life-habits of insects, especially in their 

 relation to agriculture. It is published at Washington, and 

 edited by the entomologist of the Department of Agriculture 

 and his assistants. Professor Riley announces that It will be 

 issued as regularly as an ordinary montlilv, and will complete 

 the first volume with the year. 



Throughout a considerable district in northern New Jersey 

 the potato-tops have been dying before they reach maturity, 

 and many fields of late varieties will not yield half a crop. 

 Mr. Carman, of the Rural Nezti Yorker, has found that the de- 

 struction is caused by the Cucumber flea beetle, an enemy 

 easily overlooked on account of its small size, and one, too, 

 not suspected of being capable of causing so great damage. 



Professor Rileyreports the imported Asparagus Beetle {Crio- 

 ccris asparagi) as gradually spreading southward. Following 

 the coast and the water-courses, it was found four years ago 

 at Cherrystone Creek, Maryland, ajid in 1886 it had reached 

 Old Point Comfort. Inland it sijreads more slowlv and never 

 damaged Asparagus beds in Washington until '18S7. The 



most southern inland point where it has been reported is 

 Falls Church, Fairfax County, Virginia. 



The Paulownia has so long been familiar in our Middle 

 States as a tree of large size, that it seems curious to read in a 

 German periodical an enthusiastic article describing, as a 

 noteworthy object, a tree of this species which has attained a 

 height of five and a half inetres. We are told that it bloouiS 

 each season, but that year by year it develops smaller leaves 

 and has probably passed its prime. The first Paulownia which 

 bloomed in Europe was one in Paris the floweis of which 

 appeared in 1842. 



A page in a recent number of the Illustrirtc Garten Zeitung 

 of Vienna is devoted to praise of the Niagara Grape and de- 

 scriptions of the success which has attended its cultivation in 

 this country. Three years ago, the author states, specimens 

 of its fruit were exhibited at a Congress of the Fruit Growers 

 of Lower Austria and a local grower was induced to attempt 

 its production by the same cross from which it had resulted 

 in America. His young vines already look so well, it is added, 

 that their fruiting is awaited with extreme interest. 



About thirty miles in a south-westerly direction from Paris, 

 in the old town of Rambouillet, is a so-called English garden, 

 which dates from about the year 1780. Here is a grove of 

 fully one hundreilof our Southern deciduous Cypresses (Ta.ro- 

 diuni distichuni), which are probaV>ly the finest to be seen in 

 Europe. They are growing in a low, moist piece of ground, 

 perhaps six acres in extent, and well suited to their develop- 

 ment. In the spring their bright green colors and graceful 

 forms make a strikingly Ijeautiful picture. In the " French 

 Garden," on the other side of the famous chateau, isanavenue 

 of the same kind of tree, about 400 yards long, in which many 

 of the trees measure four feet in diameter. 



There have been in Germany during the last twelve years 

 sixteen scientilic stations devoted to the investigation of me- 

 teorological and other phenomena connected with the forest. 

 At the Eberswald Station observations have been taken during 

 a mmiberof yearsfor the purposeof determining the difference 

 in the temperatin^e of the soil in the forest and in the open 

 ground. Two posts were established, the first in a grove of 

 Scotch Pines forty-five years old, and 375 feet from the open 

 ground, the other at a point 795 feet from any wood. At each 

 of these stations readings of the thermometer have been taken 

 daily at 8 A. M. and at 2 P. M. at the surface, and at depths 

 varying from six inches to four feet below the surface. The 

 results of these observations may be briefly stated to be : that 

 the temperature of the soil at the different- depths averages 

 one degree higher in the forest during the winter than in the 

 open ground, and that it is nearly three degrees cooler m 

 summer, so that the extreme variations of the soil are four 

 degrees less in the woods than in the open ground ; that the 

 forest has the same eftect upon temperature as depth below 

 the surface has — that is, it retards and modifies extremes, and 

 makes variations slower and more regular in their appearance 

 and disappearance. A full account of these experiments and 

 others carried on at these stations can be found in the annual 

 reports which Dr. Mutrich has published since 1875, £"^-1 

 which can be obtained from the Berlin bookseller Springer, 3 

 Monbijonplatz. 



The feature of the Saturday exhibition of the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society on August 4th consisted of several large 

 collections of Sweet Peas. The finest flowers in twelve un- 

 named varieties were shown by Mr. W. Patterson, gardener to 

 Mrs. Charles Francis Adams, of Ouincy. M. B. Faxon, the 

 Boston seedsman, staged twenty-five named varieties, of 

 which the finest were Black Purple, with dark, rich, purple, 

 nearly black flowers of fine substance and color ; Butterfly, 

 light, clear lilac ; Painted Lady, pink and white, clear and very 

 delicate ; and Invincible, dark, clear scarlet, and by far the 

 handsomest flower in the collection. Many of the newer 

 varieties are lacking in clearness of color, and gi\'e evidence 

 that too niLich attention has been given to the development of 

 large flowers at the expense of clear self-colors. Sweet Peas 

 are now great favorites with the pid.ilic, and the windows of 

 Boston florists often contain beautiful dispkn'S of this flower, 

 tastefully arranged with Maitlenhair Ferns, Summer Carna- 

 tions and trailing Asparagus. At the same meeting" of the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society Mr. James Condey, gar- 

 dener to Mrs. F. B. Hayes, of Lexington, exhibited the flowers 

 of a number of interesting- hvbrids hi^iw&Qw Ny inpheea eyanea 

 and N. dentata, showing a considerable variety of form and 

 several distinct shades of color, from pale to very dark blue. 

 These are the first flowers from several thousand hybrids 

 raised bv Mr. Comley, and seem full of promise for the devel- 

 opment and imiirovement of Water Lilies. 



