304 



Garden and Forest. 



[August 22, :888. 



in form, is very full and of g-ood build. The color is of the 

 deepest and richest, and the perfume very sweet and pow- 

 erful. Duchess of Albany is a sport from La France, and 

 differs in no way from the old sort except in a greater 

 depth of color. 



Allium Pedemontanum, the finest of all the ornamental 

 Onions, was beautifully shown by Mr. Ware, of Totten- 

 ham, and though an old plant now, it had never before 

 been exhibited in such perfection. Nobody would take it 

 for an Onion, so very unlike one are its drooping heads of 

 bell-shaped flowers of a rich, deep violet purple, which, 

 moreover, are devoid of the objectionable garlic odor that 

 accompanies others of the genus. It comes from Pied- 

 mont, and no doubt it is quite hardy in America, where it 

 will be considered, no doubt, among the choice bulbs for 

 the rock-garden. 



There are few American visitors to London inter- 

 ested in gardening who do not pay a visit to Mr. 

 Cannell's nurseries at Swanley. It is one of the few great 

 nurseries in this country where soft wooded plants of all 

 kinds are grown exclusively. They are for the most part 

 green-house plants, and some of these are grown on a 

 large scale. There is now a bewildering array of plants in 

 the height of their flowering season, but undoubtedly 

 the leading attractions are tuberous Begonias, single and 

 double Pelargoniums, Cannas, Gloxinias and Fuchsias. 

 The Begonias are truly wonderful, and though we are 

 accustomed to see the cream of the new varieties at the 

 Royal Horticultural exhibitions, one can have no idea from 

 these of the effect of a great houseful. The race of Swanley 

 Begonias is remarkable for sturdy and compact growth, 

 enormous flowers, in owtline as near a circle as possible in 

 a Begonia, and yet Mr. Cannell says he shall not cease 

 raising new sorts until he can strike a true circle with a 

 compass from the centre to the outer edges of the petals. 

 The colors, too, are as remarkable as the growth, for the en- 

 tire gamut of tints, from the most brilliant scarlets and 

 the deepest crimsons to pure white and clear yellow, is 

 represented, and yet this dissatisfied nurseryman will not 

 rest contented till he gets a blue or a purple Begonia. The 

 half tones are to me the most charming, especially those in 

 which there is a mixture of yellow and scarlet, or, as some 

 call the tint, yolk-of-egg color. In a new group recently 

 raised and appropriately called 'Ticotee edged" the petals are 

 white or some delicate tint, with a strongly marked edging 

 of rich color, such as crimson. Others, again, have scarlet 

 crimson or pink petals with a conspicuous white centre. 

 I am afraid I shall be accused of exaggerating if I state that 

 I measured some of the single Begonias and found they 

 covered over six inches of my rule, and some of the double 

 ones which look more like Paeonies than Begonias, are 

 over five inches across and make dense globular masses of 

 petals like satin rosettes. There are perhaps more admir- 

 ers of the double than the single varieties, but for effect in a 

 mass the former are not in it compared with the latter 

 as any one may see at Swanley with houses full of each 

 side by side. 



Another class of plants in full blow at Swanley is the 

 hybrid Cannas. These are quite new to most people, who 

 will scarcely believe that such a glorious race of plants 

 have evolved from such insignificant material as the old 

 Indian Shot {C. Indicd). Probably other species of Canna 

 have been used by the hybridist in the production of this 

 new race. These Cannas have flowers as large as those 

 of a Gladiolus, and on account of their irregular flowers, 

 they pass very well for Orchids in a cut state. The colors 

 are very strange. Odd mixtures occur among them, such as 

 bright yellow spotted with crimson, Indian or Venetian 

 red edged with yellow, crimson flaked with orange, and 

 such like combinations. I could pick out from the Swanley 

 collection a score of varieties in which these strange colors 

 occur, and all the plants bear noble foliage and are very 

 floriferous. The houseful of Cannas had a very fine effect, 

 as the large leafage, itself of various shades of green and 

 purple, acts as a foil to the tall spikes of brilliant hued 



flowers. The Cannas are planted in free soil (not in pots) 

 in a warm, moist house, and the luxuriant growth and 

 abundant bloom show that such is the proper treatment. 

 Mr. Cannell catalogues the new hybrid Cannas as the 

 " coming plants,'' and I believe he is not far wrong. 



London, July loth. W. Goldriug. 



New or Little Known Plants. 

 Magnolia hypoleuca. 



OUR illustration on page 305 is the. first which has been 

 published, with the exception of that in the Japa- 

 nese book quoted below, of this handsome Magnolia, 

 one of the largest, and the most northern of the eight 

 species found in Japan, and, econpmically, the most use- 

 ful, probably, of the entire genus. Magnolia hj'poleuca* 

 is a common tree in the rich forests which cover the moun- 

 tains in the southern part of the northern Island of Jesso. 

 Here it attams a height of sixty feet or more, with a trunk 

 diameter of nearly two feet. In habit, if we may judge 

 from the largest plant in this country, it more closely 

 resembles M. 7nacroph.yna than any other American 

 species, with the same erect trunk covered with smooth, 

 pale bark, and the same wide spreading branches. The stout 

 brown branchlets are conspicuously marked with the round 

 leaf-scars and narrow, stipular rings ; and the large, 

 pointed, glabrous leaf-buds resemble those of the North 

 American M. Umbrella. The leaves are alternate, or some- 

 what sub-verticellate toward the ends of the branches ; 

 they are broadly obovate, a foot or more long, six or 

 seven inches wide, obtuse, or sometimes shortly cuspi- 

 date, rounded at the base, and borne on stout petioles 

 an inch and a half long. They are dark green and 

 glabrous on the upper, pale and covered on the lower sur- 

 face with short, scattered, white hairs, which are longer and 

 more numerous on the prominent mid-rib and twenty to 

 twenty-four principal veins. The creamy white flowers 

 exhale a delicious fragrance, which may be described as a 

 combination of those of Wintergreen {Gaullheria) and of 

 Banana fruit; they are six or seven inches across when 

 fully expanded and appear in New York late in May or 

 early in June. The leathery, petaloid sepals and petals 

 are obovate-spathulate, rounded, or sometimes slightly cuspi- 

 date. The stamens and carpels are imbricated on a short, 

 thick receptacle, the brilliant scarlet filaments adding ma- 

 terially to the beauty of the flower. The fruit, which I 

 have not seen, is described by Siebold and Zuccarini as 

 elliptical in form. 



The wood of j\Iagnolia hypoleuca is straight-grained, 

 easily worked and dull yellow-gray in color. It is the 

 wood commonly used by the Japanese in the manufacture 

 of objects to be lacquered ; it is preferred for sword- 

 sheaths, and the charcoal made from it is used in polish- 

 ing lac. 



Magnolia hypoleuca was first sent to this country in 

 1865 by Mr. Thomas Hogg, and planted in his brother's 

 garden in Eighty-fourth Street by the East River, in this 

 city, which for many years was the most interesting spot 

 in the United States for lovers of Japanese plants. 



This tree is now twenty-eight feet high, with a trunk 

 thirty-one inches in diameter three feet from the ground ; 

 and it will be a misfortune if the improvements now being 

 made in that part of the city necessitate its destruction. 



The northern and elevated range of this species, and 

 the fact that Mr. Hogg's specimen has grown so rapidly 

 in an exceedingly bleak arid exposed position, seem to 

 indicate that this tree will prove hardy in the Northern 

 and Middle States. It has been largely propagated by Mr. 

 S. B. Parsons, at Flushing, Long Island. We are indebted 

 to the Superintendent of Central Park for the specimen 

 from which our illustration was taken. C. S. S. 



'^Magnolia hypoleuca, Siebold and Zuccarini, Fain. Nat., n. 349. — Maximowicz, 

 Bull. Acad. Sci., St. Petersbux-g, viii. 509. — fVanchet and Savatier, Enum. Fl. Jap., 

 i. 17. 



M. glauca, Tiiunberg, FI. Jap., 236 (not Linnseus). 



"Kwa-wi, Arb., vol". 2, fol. 2, sub. Tan paltou ; Fonoki." 



